MALARIA AND AGRICULTURE 323 



Government to make preliminary drainage siirveys in the most prominent of 

 these potentially productive regions. The following statement concerning the 

 effect of malaria on the progress of this work has been made to the writer by 

 Dr. George Otis Smith, director of the United States Geological Survey : 



" ' In one of the Southern States 11 topographic parties have been at work 

 during the past field season. The full quota for these parties would be 55 men, 

 but I believe that something over 100 men have been employed at different times 

 during the season. While I have not exact figures before me, I feel warranted 

 in the statement that at least 95 per cent of these employees have been sick, for 

 periods ranging from a few days up to two weeks, in the hospital. Many of them 

 have been able later to return to work, but at least 30 per cent had to leave the 

 field permanently. By reason of this sickness the efficiency of the parties was 

 reduced, at a very conservative estimate, by 25 per cent. 



" ' In my recent visit in this field I found one man sick in each of the parties I 

 saw and one man who had just returned from the hospital leaving the field for 

 good. A similar state of things was reported from the other parties. I regard 

 the sickness as practically all of a malarial nature, as extreme care was taken 

 in all the camps to use nothing but boiled water except in a few instances where 

 artesian water from great depths was available. In all the camps the tents have 

 been screened, and in every case where the topographer has lived for any time 

 " on the country " there has been infection. As illustrating the value of the 

 precautions generally taken by our camp parties, I might cite the fact that last 

 year in West Virginia with 30 men living in camp, with typhoid fever prevalent 

 in the neighborhood, no cases developed, while with 6 men living on the country 

 where the same care could not be taken regarding the water supply, two cases of 

 typhoid developed.' 



" In estimating the weight of Doctor Smith's statement, it must be borne in 

 mind that the men of his field parties are exceptionally intelligent and prepared 

 to take all ordinary precautions. 



" Throughout the region in question malaria is practically universal. The 

 railroads suffer, and at the stations throughout the territory it is practically im- 

 possible to keep operators steadily at work. This reduction in efficiency in the 

 surveying parties and in the local railroad officials is moreover probably very 

 considerably less than the reduction in the earning capacity of the entire popu- 

 lation, which, however, is necessarily scanty. 



" In an excellent paper entitled ' The relation of malaria to agricultural and 

 other industries of the South,' published in the Popular Science Monthly for 

 April, 1903, Prof. Glenn W. Herrick, then of the College of Agriculture of 

 Mississippi, after a consideration of the whole field, concludes that malaria is 

 responsible for more sickness among the white population of the South than any 

 disease to which it is now subject. The following forcible statement referring 

 to the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina 

 is in Professor Herrick's words : 



" ' We must now consider briefly what 635,000 or a million cases of chills and 

 fevers in one year mean. It is a self-evident truth that it means well for the 

 physician. But for laboring men it means an immense loss of their time to- 

 gether with the doctors' fees in many instances. If members of their families 

 other than themselves be affected, it may also mean a loss of time together with 

 the doctors' fees. For the employer it means the loss of labor at a time perhaps 

 when it would be of greatest value. If it does not mean the actual loss of labor 

 to the employer it will mean a loss in the efficiency of his labor. To the farmers 

 it may mean the loss of their crops by want of cultivation. It will always mean 

 the noncultivation or imperfect cultivation of thousands of acres of valuable land. 



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