RELATION OF MALARIA TO AGRICULTURE. 521 



THE RELATION OF MALAKIA TO AGEICULTUEE AND 

 OTHER INDUSTRIES OP THE SOUTH. 



By Professor GLENN W. HERRICK, 



AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MISS. 



TN a paper on 'Measures for the Decrease of Malaria in the South,' 

 -*- read in Nashville, Tenn., in August of the past summer before the 

 Southern Commissioners of Agriculture, I very briefly called atten- 

 tion to the important role of malaria in agriculture. It was an in- 

 adequate attempt to demonstrate the practical bearing of this disease 

 upon the wealth-producing powers of a commonwealth, with the hope 

 that it might prove an added inducement for putting into practice the 

 measures which had been recommended for the decrease of malaria. 

 For to induce a people to use a remedy it must first be shown that a 

 remedy is very much needed. We trust that this further treatment 

 of the same question will result in more widespread and serious dis- 

 cussions and investigations of the profound influence of this most 

 insidious disease upon the industries and wealth-producing powers of 

 the southern people. 



The south as a whole has given little thought to the tremendous 

 role malaria plays in her industries, especially in agriculture. We 

 have no idea of the loss occasioned by malaria in unfitting men for 

 long or energetic hours of labor. The loss of energy and enthusiasm, 

 the loss of interest in one's own efforts and successes, all of which con- 

 tribute enormously to the inefficiency of labor and cause the wealth- 

 producing power, especially in agriculture, to fall far short of its 

 normal capacity, is due in a marvelous and undreamed of degree to 

 that life-sapping disease, malaria. The man that is just able to 

 'crawl out of bed and drag around' is certainly not the man to accom- 

 plish an efficient and full day's labor. Because a man is at work is 

 not necessarily a proof that he is actually adding to the sum total of 

 his own wealth or to that of the state, and in a lesser degree does it 

 prove that he is adding to the sum total of wealth, all of which he is 

 capable. A man's general state of health has quite as much relation 

 to his producing powers as the amount and kind of food he eats. And 

 certainly there is no disease known to man that more insidiously under- 

 mines his constitution and lessens his ability to produce his full meas- 

 ure of wealth than malaria. Moreover, looking at malaria from 

 another point of view, namely its relation to other diseases, let us hear 

 what the eminent Dr. Patrick Manson, of England, says. In speaking 

 of the importance of our knowledge concerning the relation of mos- 



