Conquest of malaria : the views of Surgeon-General Gorgas / interviewed by William Macdonald.

  • William Crawford Gorgas
Date:
[1914?]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Conquest of malaria : the views of Surgeon-General Gorgas / interviewed by William Macdonald. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    leaded at the bottom. This requires little or no care in arrangement and is very effective. VALUE OF QUININE. Have you any other preventive measures ? -—Yes, some mosquitoes will still pass the last line of defence of which I have spoken, .and for these we have another measure to meet such emergency. It is that well- ‘known substance called quinine, which is -poisonous to the parasite, and, happily, has at the same time very little effect on the person in whom the parasite dwells. This substance is the alkaloid of a tree, native to Peru, in South America. If an in- dividual lives in a badly malarious country -and takes five grains of quinine daily he will always have some quinine circulating in his blood. When an anopheles mosquito injects malarial parasites into his blood under these circumstances, the parasites are at once killed by absorbing the quinine so poisonous to them. Malaria always has to be got by the mosquito from some human ‘being harbouring the malarial parasite in ‘the blood. It is important, therefore, to ‘keep at a distance persons who are suffer- ing from malaria or who are carrying the parasite in their blood. The native of ‘South Africa is very extensively infected with this parasite, though he is not always ‘made sick by it. Long exposure to malaria has given him more or less immunity to the disease. The parasite is still more com- ‘monly found in the blood of native chil- dren. It is important, therefore, to keep native habitations at a distance from living quarters of the whites so that the mos- quitoes about the white quarters may not “become infected. MALARIA CAN BE ERADICATED. Do you believe malaria can be eradicated frcm any locality?—Assuredly. Any of ‘the measures just mentioned, if carried out perfectiy, would protect the individual and cvadicate malaria from any given locality. Humanly speaking, it is impossible to carry “one of them out in its entire perfection. If thev are ail adopted, and carried out as carefully as the local conditions will allow, any individual anywhere can protect him- self from malaria, and any locality, no matter how unfavourably situated or how ‘badly infected with malaria, can be freed from this disease. This statement is not ‘based on theory. It has already been ac- complished many times, in many different parts of the world, by many different men. In Havana, Cuba, the methods mentioned above were first worked out and put into practice. Havana at the time referred to was a city of 250,000 inhabitants. Their deaths from malaria for the ten years pre- ceding 1900 varied between four hundred and eight hundred a year. Yellow fever, another mosquito-borne disease, had con- tinuously existed in the city for the pre- vious hundred and fifty years. The anti- mosquito measures outlined above were put into effect during the year 1901. The re- sults were evident before the end of that year. For the last four years the deaths from malaria have fluctuated between ten and twenty for the whole city and there has been no yellow fever at all. In 1911 the death-rate from malaria fever on the Isthmus of Panama among the white American employes, their wives and families, 10,661 men, women and children, was one man and two children. These workers are fully as healthy and vigorous in appearance as a similar population liv- ing in the healthy portions of the United States. The total death-rate from disease in the whole force in 1906 was: 41.24 per 1,000; during 1912 it had dropped to 6.37 per 1,000 out of a total average force of 50,895 men. What has been accomplished as to malaria at Panama can be accom- plished anywhere else if the same measures are carried out. BLACKWATER FEVER. Is blackwater fever a new disease ?—Oh, no. It is a well-known disease in almost all parts of the world in which pernicious man lives. We have it in the Southern parts of the United States, and have had it during the last six years at Panama. Both in the United States and at Panama the methods and conditions that have been successful in the case of malaria have also been successful in the case of blackwater fever. Some people seem to think that be- cause we do not know the germ of black- water fever we can not do anything to control it. We do not yet know the germ of yellow fever, yet it is the disease over which we have most sanitary control. By carrying into effect anti-mosquito measures Havana was cleared of yellow fever within a year, and at Panama, due to the same measures, we have had no yellow fever since 1906. Personally, I am inclined to think that blackwater fever is a phase of malaria. But whether it is due to the malarial parasite or a specific germ is of no more practical sanitary importance than it is at present for us to know the specific germ of yellow fever. In both cases we know the measures that will prevent. This is the great point in practical sanitary science. We do not know what electricity is, yet the control of and the application of this force in the industrial world is of ever-growing importance. EDUCATION. What is the great need in our campaign against Malaria?—To my mind—Educa- tion. What is really wanted is a campaign
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