156 GNATS OR MOSQUITOES — CHAPTER VIII 



Hence, persons who have had no recent opportunity of 

 being bitten by Mosquitoes often do develop a typical ague, 

 but the fact remains that they must have been bitten at 

 some time, and as a matter of fact the interval is a concern 

 of but little moment to the parasite. The patient in fact, 

 though apparently' well, has latent malaria ; in other words, 

 he harbours but a harmless number of quiescent parasites, 

 and the exception is only apparent. The fact of the possi- 

 bility of the transmission of malaria in this way having 

 thus been now conclusively demonstrated, we may take it 

 as certain that every malarial patient has at some time 

 been bitten by an infected Mosquito. Further, it appears 

 probable that only Mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles are 

 capable of acting as the host of the sexual stage of the 

 parasite, but this is not certain. 



Now the malarial parasite is responsible for by far the 

 greatest proportion of all sickness and death in the tropics. 

 Cholera and plague are the insignificant enemies that 

 perhaps kill a few thousands a year —in an impressive way 

 it is true ; but the quiet, insidious malaria sweeps off its 

 millions, and so habituated have we, native and European 

 alike, become to the danger, that we have come to look 

 upon the inconvenience of one or more " touches of fever " 

 during the year, as a necessary evil, inseparable from the 

 conditions of tropical residence, and no more to be escaped 

 than the occasional " cold " of more temperate climates. 

 Unfortunately there can, I fear, be no doubt that this 

 fatalistic frame of mind will, for a long time to come, con- 

 stitute one of the greatest obstacles to sanitary improve- 

 ment ; for such preconceptions are hard to eradicate, and 

 hence it comes that, while large sums are freely expended 

 in fighting in the dark against the unfamiliar terror of 

 plague, in the case of malaria, wher6 we have already a 

 large basis of solid facts to work upon, our total expendi- 

 ture on the prevention of malaria appears to be comprised 

 in the vote of the absurd sum of Rs. 30 per menaem to 

 provide the salary of a man to destroy Mosquito-larv;r with 

 kerosine, by the City fathers of Calcutta. I doubt if India 

 will ever be a pleasant residence for the white man for 



