Report of the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services / [Ceylon].

  • Ceylon. Civil Medical Department.
Date:
[1929]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services / [Ceylon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    62/114 (page 60)
    The above figures show that as regards intensity of infestation and the incidence rate a certain level of equilibrium of infestation has been reached in the Island. Treatment, however thorough and intensive, always leaves some infection behind and has little effect on the level of equilibrium. The treatttnents at present carried out do not reach every member of a house. Therefore if the different areas are left undisturbed the soil infestation would increase and reach the original level more or less in two or three years—see Table 13. The continuous spell of wet weather in most parts of the Island, the habit of pollution on the floors and in the immediate vicinity of the houses by young ehildren and further out by older children and adults, even in places where latrines are established, the scattering of the infection by dogs, pigs, and fowls, and me absence of foot-gear are the factors that determine this level of equilibrium. There is no control over climatic conditions and the enforcement of universal shoe wearing is not practicable. The progress of household or family sanitation which is the key to the solution of the problem must be slow and it cannot keep pace with the treatment campaigns, however energetic and enthusias¬ tic the sanitarian may be. The situation to-day may be thus described—on many a front, the hookworm has lost its strongholds and irreparable breaches have been made in other places; its losses could be counted in millions; its allies, the soil polluters, are being won over in large numbers and the advancing army of sanitarians is making good progress but the country is not yet conquered and there is still considerable fight left in the enemy. It should be the object of vigilant watch in places where it is secure, while slow and steady advance is registered in all other places. Acknowledgments. Our thanks are due to the following who co-operated with us in the campaigns and helped us in many ways: the various Government Agents and Assistant Government Agents, the chief and minor headmen, the Director of Education, the headmasters, teachers, and local managers of schools, the Surveyor-General and the officers of the Medical and Sanitary Services. The valuable advice and guidance of the Assistant Director of Sanitary Services are also gratefully acknowledged. February 21, 1930. A. T. KURIYAN, Superintendent, Ankylostomiasis Campaigns.