19G GNATS OR MOSQUITOES— CHAPTER VIII 



ment of malaria. In the European sense of the word 

 cultivation of this description is so exceptional in the East 

 that it can have but little influence, but in Europe level 

 pieces of land with a high ground water level are commonly 

 chosen for pastoral purposes, and the careful levelling of 

 the fields, together with the thick covering of grass, must 

 necessarily go far to prevent the formation of permanent 

 puddles ; and the disappearance of malaria from England 

 is probably largely due to the substitution of pastoral for 

 arable agriculture throughout the country. 



This disappearance, it will be noticed, dates from the time 

 when the improvement of means of transport so cheapened 

 imported corn as to render the cultivation of cereals in 

 England unprofitable. At that time quinine was so expen- 

 sive, and its proper administration so little understood, that 

 it was administered in doses so small that it could have had 

 but little effect in checking the disease which, nevertheless, 

 had practically disappeared from the country before the great 

 fall in the price of the drug rendered its full administration 

 practicable. 



I have been told by a druggist who was in business in 

 the fen country while it was still malarious, that the 

 popular remedy was then the prophylactic use of opium. 



It was quite common for a farmer's wife to carry home 

 along with her other weekly market day purchases, a half 

 pint of laudanum ; but he was but rarely asked for quinine. 

 Now while there is a certain amount of evidence tending to 

 show that the habitual use of opium has some protective 

 influence against malaria, it is certainly incapable of 

 destroying the parasite, and it appears on the whole unlikely 

 that the use of drugs can have had any appreciable effect 

 in stamping out the disease, which is more probably due 

 entirely to alterations and improvements in agriculture. 



The Effects of Human Occupation. — Given the necessary 

 climatic conditions, it is man himself who is the most 

 efficient of all agencies in bringing about the conditions that 

 favour malaria. The human being is essentially a digging 

 animal, and, whether it be the savage, who scoops up a few 

 handfuls of mud wherewith to smear the wattles of his liut 



