Book Description

Excerpt from Top Minnows in Relation to Malaria Control, With Notes on Their Habits and Distribution The seriousness of malaria as a disease in the Southern States of this country generally has not been realized in the past, and, since it is the immediate cause of death less frequently than a number of other diseases, it has not received the attention which it justly de serves. Dr. H. B. Carter, Assistant Surgeon General, United States Public Health Service, who, because of his many years of close study and extensive experience, is well qualified to Speak as an authority on the subject, says 1 In the United States where it seriously pre vails it is the most injurious of all diseases. I do not except typhoid, nor for the South, pellagra, nor tuberculosis. First, ma laria is one of the diseases that debilitates and thus increases the fatality of other diseases. I am very sure it is a factor in many deaths in which it is not the terminal factor. I think it causes many more deaths than are ascribed to it. Nor is the number of deaths a fair criterion, a fair measure, of the damage that a disease does. Surely the disability that it causes, the loss of efficiency, is of importance. And it is the amount of malaria that appals. T here is so much of it where it exists. If you have half of 1 per cent typhoid cases in a city in a year, you count it as an epidemic, or a serious problem. Five per thousand; certainly that is serious. We scarcely consider malaria to prevail unless we have at least 10 to 12 per cent of cases a year; 25 per cent is common and 50 per cent is not rare, and at times we find 90 to 100 per cent. Prosperity is not com patible with the prevalence of malaria. That is true of few diseases. Take yellow fever. I would by no means belittle the damage it does, but it does not do the harm to the community that malaria does. Habana was a prosperous city with endemic yellow fever. New Orleans was prosperous with many epidemics. But I defy you to show me one single place inhabited by white people where malaria seriously prevails which is prosperous. It does not exist. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.