CONDITIONS INFLUENCING PEEVALENCE 213 



remembered, two distinct stages of parasitic life, each with 

 its special host : Mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles during 

 its period of sexual life and multiplication ; the human 

 subject during its non-sexual stage : and it is obvious that 

 the parasite may be attacked in either, or both of these 

 stages. 



The stage of the parasite that is passed within the 

 human subject may be dismissed with a few words. As 

 the end of all our efforts is the preservation of the host, 

 all that can be done is to poison the parasite with quinine, 

 or to isolate cases of malaria in such a manner that they 

 cannot infect a relay of Mosquitoes. As regards the first 

 method, a good deal is being done by the Indian authorities 

 to popularise the use of quinine by distributing it through 

 the agency of the Post office at cost price through the 

 length and breadth of the land. At every Post office in 

 India one can buy for a farthing five grains of excellent 

 quinine, and though the amount so distributed, when 

 stated as so much per head of the population, is insignifi- 

 cant, the amount sold is already much more considerable 

 than most of us expected would be the case among a people 

 so slow to avail themselves of new advantages as that of 

 India. Within the present year a new effort in the same 

 direction has been made by enlisting the agency of land- 

 owners to distribute the drug in the same semi-gratuitous 

 fashion to their tenants ; and almost the last official duty 

 it fell to the writer's lot to perform was to compile an 

 indent for something like a hundred-weight of quinine for 

 distribution in this way in a single district, a quantity which 

 would have made his earlier administrative chiefs aghast 

 with astonishment. Added to this, the invaluable services 

 of Sir William King, F.K.S., late of our service, in estab- 

 lishing the cultivation of the cinchona plant in India, have 

 revolutionised the price of the drug, and thereby conferred 

 an incalculable boon not only on India but on all malaria- 

 stricken humanity. The absolutely gratuitous distribution 

 of quinine has been suggested, but personally I doubt if 

 the cost to the consumer would be perceptibly less, for 

 State benefits of this sort are woefully liable to be lost in 



