The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1939-06-08
Mississippis Public Health Progrom Brings Economic Coins

training base ut Gulfport each
maintained the second best hea26h
record IN their respective gruuW
In the nation.
Later, M. Bruin Mitzmain Of lie
Public Health Service, working m
central Mississippi, made the Inn
portant discovery that the para
sites of malaria do not live through
the winter in the bodies OF mos
quitoes. man being the winter car
rier of the disease. Mississippi X
periments with screening further
advanced the campaign.
The malaria control activities IN
Mississippi. following the general
| program outlined and inaugurated
in 1928 by DR.. Mark F.. Boyd OF
the International Health Division
of the Rockefeller Foundation.
were in 1882 approved and recon-
mended by the National Malaria
Committee to other Southern states
| and counties. Within the last few
years, Mississippi has been build
ing malaria OUT of rural areas
by permanent ditcking and drain
age to get rid of Anopheles mos
| ouitoes.
Following an inspection trip in
1897 of 60 of these ditching projects
in "a Mississippi counties. Colonel
j. A. LePrince. Sanitary Engineer
of the United States Public Health
Service. reported to the Surgeon
General that procedures locally de-
vised we're of such merit that they
might become future standard per-
manent malaria control project
methods over large areas Of the
United States and other countries.
"On the whole" Colonel Le-
Prince reported. 1.-THE field work is
being so well done that the writer
is of the opinion that the State
Board of Health of Mississippi
should be complimented officially
for ~ the results being achieved,
t2) their tendency to develop
quaker. better and CHEAPER meth
DDS Of malaria control and also of
developing methods which make
use of low cost locally available
material"
In 1899, Colonel LePrmce com-
mented. Forty towns and villages
in northern Mississippi have start
ed during the past two years to
build malaria permanently out. No
other state has such a record"
The South remembers that 1t
vas in Mississippi in 1915 that DR..
Joseph Goldberger of the United
States Public Health Service dis
covered the cause and cure of pei
lagra, conducting his experiments
with twelve State prisoners who
conse nted to the test. and verify
ing his results with children in two
jackson orphanages. Mississippi in
1929 had 1898 cases of pellagra:
~ 1925. 1908 cases-a reduction OF
70 percent.
The nation will remember. too.
that the Delta Pine arl Lard Com
pany plantation at Scott, Mississip-
ri. was the cradle of Americas
present syphilis control program
During last summer. when the
United States Army chose South
Mississippi for its Fourth Corps
troop maneuvers involving approx.
imately $4,000 men. it estab-
fshed the remarkable record o.
!, incredibly few hospitalizatiors anc
MOI a single death from diseaS.e
The tangible returns Of such
: health ~~ 'nov - measured
in the opinions of the South's lead
J ing observers. Publicist Gera't
johnson hos pot.ited out that tbs
|, period OF conquest of hookworn
corresponds with the neriod of econ
omic advance in the South. Ruper,
Vance. the South's geographer
predicts that. "As the parasites
peculiar to the South are gradually
/ brought under control we may ex-
pect a notable release of the en-
ergies of its population"
M~ississi-pi's pGblic health pro-
gram may well be the sprirgboard
for Mississippi's economic leaps
This is the twenty second of
. series Of semi monthly pre-
sensations Of the Mississippi
Advertising Commission. r he
twenty-thir' tire Mis-
sissippi's -v~-
program.