RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 391 



the third partner is the mosquito, and the chain can be broken 

 by destroying its breeding places ; in plague it is the rat and 

 the flea ; in Malta fever the goat ; in typhus the louse. The 

 enormous success which has attended the work of the tropical 

 sanitarian in dealing with these pests is full of encouragement. 



Finally interest, having to some extent moved from the 

 laboratory, passes again to the victims — the men and women. 

 It passes, too, to their work, and is focused on factory and mine, 

 where so many of the third partners of disease are located. The 

 reason why stone-cutters are specially liable to phthisis, and 

 why coal-miners escape this disease, becomes of vast moment, 

 as does the unusual susceptibility of printers to the same 

 malady and the unusual immunity of engine-drivers. Thus 

 medicine goes to the homes and workshops of the people in 

 search of its new material. The new Science of Industrial 

 Hygiene, which is as yet an infant, is the normal expression of 

 this change of attitude. 



The Treatment of Malaria. — ^The treatment of malaria has 

 proved a matter of vast importance since the close of the war. 

 The great number of infected men from the Eastern theatres of 

 war who have sought help from the Ministry of Pensions has 

 caused this Department to take active measures to clear up 

 various points of difficulty. In that task the Ministry has been 

 assisted by Sir Ronald Ross and other well-known special 

 workers. Indeed, it was Sir Ronald who first suggested the 

 " tropical disease clinics " which now play so important a part 

 in the handling of malaria, dysentery, and other cases. 



Nor have these clinics failed to assist the progress of medical 

 knowledge. As a result of prolonged study and trial. Sir 

 Ronald Ross has found that, if good results are to be obtained 

 in malaria cases, the administration of quinine must be carried 

 out on definite principles. The patient is carefully instructed 

 in these principles, and is thus invited tobecome an active partner 

 in the work of his cure. He is provided with a mixture con- 

 taining quinine, and told to take his dose each morning immedi- 

 ately before he sits down to his breakfast. Each dose consists 

 of 10 grains of quinine hydrochloride. The treatment is con- 

 tinued for three months. 



There is nothing haphazard in this method, for Sir Ronald's 

 earlier researches have shown that three months is the period 

 required to reduce the parasites to vanishing-point, taking the 

 daily death-rate of parasites at a definite proportion of the total 

 present. 



In practice the method has proved exceedingly satisfactory, 

 and has undoubtedly resulted in a large saving of public money. 

 What is more important still, it has helped large numbers of men 

 who, in other circumstances, must havedrifted to chronic ill-health. 



