The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1914-01-16
ERADICATE MALARIA.
Estate Board of Health Bulletin. }

The doctors of FLORIDA and OF the
South are planning a campaign to
10 that very thing and they will sue
Remarkable how much hinges on
that one word sometimes, but this
time it means if the people of F'lori-
da and the South will permit the doc
tors to do the work, if they will help
ard cooperate. 1t would seem at first
thought, that those who suffer from
the disease and who are the possible
victims next summer and the year af-
ter, would gladly assist, but will
they?
10 understand the proposition it is
necessary to outline the problem
briefly. Malaria is caused by a germ
n the human blood. 1t enters the red
,orpusclos and once every forty-eight
hours it bursts open its particular cell
nd a dozen or two little germs come
,ut. Each chooses new cell and the
process is repeated on the second day
thereafter. Whenever this matching
out" from the cells takes place, the
patient has chill. Sometimes there
is a double infection, or two sets of
germs, which hatch out on alternate
lays and the patient has a chill every
lay, instead of once in two days.
When the malaria victim is bitten
oy the Anopheles mosquito-by that
variety and no other-the insect is in
fected with this germ and becomes a
:arrier of the disease to new human
victim. The process, or the cycle, as
the doctors call it, is complicated
one, which takes a page or more of a
roodsized book and several interest
ng pictures to describe to layman
out it is thoroughly understood and il
works through enc generation after
mother Of the germs as smoothly as
! hundred-Gollar watch.
1t works SO exactly and each STEP
n the process is so necessary to all
the rest of this cycle, that if once il
5 broken at any stage, the chain is
interrupted and the result is that the
disease is stopped. If the mosquito
his particular Anopheles which works
only during the late Afternoon ant
night hours flor the mosquitoes thai
bite in the day time are usually only
The Culsx-the rain barrel or the salt
marsh mosquitoes-and are merely
7uisances and are not carriers of dis.
Ease germs) could be got rid of, ma.
!aria would cease. If the malarial pa.
tient could be so protected by care.
ful screening that no Anopheles coult
bite him and carry the germs to other
humans, the disease would cease
Poth tho ,,,oco,,;to o,J +bo b,,,a. -
host are necessary to the continuation
of malaria, and if either is lacking the
cycle is broken beyond repair. If, f.
nally, the germ may be eradicated
from the systems of those who are
sufferers from the disease, malaria
would become thing of the past in
any section, state or country in which
the remedy had been applied thor
oughly ard honestly.
1 proven fact. A systematic cam
2aign, based on this knowledge, was
made in the Panama Canal Zone un-
Ter the splendid leadership of Colonel
William c. Gorgas. The result? The
Aumber of cases for each one thous-
.,nd of the population was reduced
from S2l in 1906, to 10 in 1909, and
the number of deaths for each thous-
and inhabitants, from 500 to four
tenths of one.
In Italy, the home of malaria, the
reduction of deaths from the G;seas.
was from 1861 in 1901, to 4,871 in
l9O6,-sixty-five per cent. At Isma.
LA, town of six thousand inhabitants
along the Suez Canal, 1880 cases &C.
Cured in 1900 and only 81 in 1905. a
practical humiliation of the disease.
At the annual melting of the South.
ern Medical Association at Lexington
Kentucky, last fall, the Florida Gele.
gates advocated campaign through
The Southern States for the complete
eradication of malaria. They pre-.
sented their ideas and the assoeia.
tlon named commission with a Flor.
da doctor as chairman, to plan anC
naugurate war against the disease
The plans have not yet been fully ma.
tureG, for they involve a lot of edu.
cation of the people and that take.
money. But with ample means anc
the earnest cooperation of those VIII;
are to be benefited directly, it is DOS
sible. 1t is simple but an euormou,
Undertaking from the medical stand
point.
1t contemplates the education of tn.
people as to the part that the mos
quito has in spreading the disease anc
70 show them how to guard aeains
Y. 1t cortemplates, as far as possi
hle, the destruction of the mosouitr
IN its larval and adult stages: it in
GUIDES the prevention of the existerc.
of the perns in man end the eradi
cation of the germs from infect,
cases by isolating them from fu-th
er biting by the MOSQUITO and by des
troving the germs already there.
Tho destruction of the r1osori+.
would he possible if everywhere N,
conditions that favor It's braaI'r.
could be made unfavorahle. IF IN,
practical destruction could mt h,
made complete. tho number Of insect,
could he materially reduced. rs ~,
heen demonstrated in numberless in
stances.
The prevention If the devalnn.,,on
of germs in man is ACCOMPLISHED ~
MURINE. TakP' ln roses varvlng wit
local conditions "~d probably en-,a
That ACCORDING TO the individual. fn-
'r'"'"'ne is preventive as well as
cure.
Tho eradication of III, GAVIN ~,
- N'ooa Of the Infected individual Il
to h. nrcom~iished by tho rvstemati,
ard thn"orgh treatment with auiniro
II this matter, as ip general medi