SUCCESS IN ITALY 441 



the mortality now runs from 0.050 to 0.800. In North Italy, in Piedmont and 

 Liguria, malaria is now practically non-existent, and the same may be said for 

 the province of Marche. In the Campagna itself, the mortality runs from 0.010 

 to 0.050, or at least this was the condition in 1908, and affairs have improved 

 since then. Again, it was Howard's good fortune to visit the Campagna with 

 Celli in May, 1910. The metamorphosis in the intervening eight years was 

 simply miraculous. The Campagna has become populous; new buildings are 

 going up on every hand ; the peasants are robust, weU fed, and obviously healthy ; 

 the children are fat, rosy, and full of life ; agriculture of the most intensive kind 

 is going on everywhere ; and capital has come down from North Italy and the 

 price of land is rapidly increasing. Anopheles, however, is still breeding there, 

 and can be seen in the irrigating and draining ditches. The whole country is 

 reclaimed swamp, interspersed with small hills, with a tufa subsoil and volcanic 

 rock beneath. Mechanical measures first undertaken to protect the buildings 

 and huts with wire screens gradually reduced the percentage of infection with 

 malaria from 65 per cent to 12 per cent. Beyond this point for a time it seemed 

 impossible to reduce the disease, and then the quininization was begun. 



" Government supplies of quinine were placed at points in the custom-houses 

 where it could be readily had; poor people were given it for a time free; and 

 it was made palatable for the children by giving pellets under proper dosage a 

 heavy coating of chocolate, so that often babies cried for their medicine. Every 

 possible means was used for advertising and for distributing. Conspicuous signs 

 were posted along the roads and at the places of distribution. Small articles for 

 sale in boxes contained the government directions concerning quinine, and even 

 the covers of cheap cigarette packages were, and are, used for this purpose. 



" In fact, a degree of ingenuity has been shown in this advertising which is 

 worthy of the most ingenious Yankee advertising agent. The cigarette package 

 cover bears the following statements (literally translated) : 



" ' OFFICIAL QUININE 



is a preventative and curative remedy of unquestionable efficacy against malarial 

 fever. 



" ' Official quinine is sold to the public at very moderate prices by phar- 

 macists, drug-stores, and by private agencies that are licensed. 



" It is sold at a special rate 



by the 



'Maggazino di deposito' of Turin to charity organizations, to the city, to 



public and private persons who are obliged by law to furnish it gratuitously to 



the poor and laborers. 



Official quinine for gratuitous administration 

 to the poor and laborers is prepared by the Central Military Pharmacy of Turin 

 in tablets of 20 centigrams each, sugared in the form of candy. 



" ' Official quinine for sale to the public 

 is prepared by the Central Military Pharmacy of Turin in tablets of 20 centi- 

 grams each, enclosed in small tubes of 2 grams each.' 



" It results from the universal use of quinine in the prescribed doses that the 

 percentage of malaria has been reduced to less than 4 per cent, and this per- 

 centage is maintained, although the mechanical protective means have been 

 practically abandoned. The straw huts are no longer screened, and of the houses 

 only the upper-story bedrooms. Door-screens have been abandoned. The whole 

 country is full of life and energy, and the richness of the soil is so great that in 

 a comparatively few years the Campagna will be supporting an enormous 

 population. 



