The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-03-23
Alabama Pays HeaUily
 ForMaLaria Each Year
More Than 157O00 Per Year Victims of Anophees Mos quto-Federal Government Always Eager to Aid
 in Prevention Work
By A. CLoYD GILL

izens of Alabama are helpless de- pendents on their state; their families suffer; every industry of the state suf- fers; where children are involved just at a time when they are getting their growth and education it gives them d permanent handicap in life; mother suffering from it's effects cannot satis- factorily nurse her child; nor will the child have had the same prenatal ad- vantages as the offspring of heaitny child.
 To care for Alabama's annual cas- ualties from this enemy, if all were stricken at one and the same time. II would be necessary to build a sana- torium large enough to accommodate Mobile. Selma, Tuscaloosa, Gadsden, Florence and Opelika.
 The anopheles mosquito is the name the United States public health service has given this enemy, whose ravages have been confined mostly to the south.
 A survey just completed by the gov ernment shows that between 6,000,00O and 7,000,000 suffered from malaria Cchills and fever) last year, Most of these were in the south. Alabama was fertile field for the anopheles mos quito. Malaria is contracted only aft CT contact with this mosquito.
 Surgeon General Rupert Blue of the United States public health service this week directed a letter to Gov. Thomas E. Kilby of Alabama and other south ern governors appealing for co-opera- ton between state, federal and local health authorities with a view to getting the situation under control
 The government is concerned over the economic loss to the areas visited by the disease. In Alabama it means stopping for one month each year the productivity of population equal to that of the city of Birmingham.
 This disease is costing Alabama an nually millions of dollars.
 Assistant Surgeon General H. R. Car ter has just completed an exhaustive investigatio of conditions in the south as affected by the annual scourge of malaria.
 For the south is as whole it is safe to say that typhoid fever, dys- entery. pellagra and tuberculosis, all together, are not as important as malaria" he says. There is practical ly no instance known of 8 white com munity thriving where malaria seri- ously prevails.
 Recent surveys In south show that the crop yield by plantations where malaria prevails is only fraction of what it normally should be.
 "Competent investigators are of the opinion that the backward condition of the school children in the coastal plains of the Carolinas is almost entirely due to the prevalence of malaria.
 "In connection with the fact that the white population is prone to abandon regions where malaria is prevalent, it must be remembered taht this causes the disease to have an important so- biological influence, especially in the south, for it results in large areas be- ing inhabitated almost entirely by ne groes."
 MT. Carter states that in a recent health survey of a suburb of Dallas, Texas, lover 25 per cent of the sick ness was caused by malaria.
 Tt is we'll recognized" he says, that the prosperity of any section of the country is measured by the amount of freight business done therein by the railroads Applying this, we find that there is little railroad business in those sectons of thes outh where malaria is svery prevalent.
 "The trains pass through these re- gions, but neither discharge nor pick up any considerable amount of freight.
 This condition, he says, should war rant careful attention of manufactur- CTS. business men and bankers, for it reveals a large area susceptible of profitable economic development.
 MT. Carter is recognized as being the foremost malaria and mosquito expert in America He is planning the in auguration of an anti-malaria campaign to cover the entire south.
 The public health service will ask foI a conference sometime in April or early in May of the governors of the southern states and the mayors of southern cites together with representatives of employ