MALARIA — WATSON 343 



lying malaria control in any country in the world. That principle 

 of malaria control is Malaya's great gift to the world." And in 1938 

 he wrote: "Without species sanitation one feels helpless." 



In 1911 I was invited to organize the control of malaria in Singa- 

 pore. The disease was present not only throughout the year, but it 

 caused a great annual Avave with its peak in the month of May. 

 Between 2,000 and 3,000 people died each year as a result of malaria, 

 out of a population of 250,000. Today the population is treble that 

 figure. Yet in 1939 the President of the Municipality could say: 

 "Malaria has been absolutely stamped out. It would be a very 

 unfortunate resident who contracted malaria now." It has been 

 calculated that all health measures, of which the most important 

 by far has been the prevention of malaria, have saved over 100,000 

 lives in Singapore in the last 30 years. 



Of the value of the combination of research and practical work to 

 the community, I may quote from an address by Eric Macfadyen 

 (1938) : 



Had it not been for malaria coutrol, Bi'itish Malaya . . . could never have 

 been realized. Its populous towns, its railways and roads which have unlocked 

 its natural resources, the monster dredging plants, representing an outlay of 

 millions sterling, which excavate its tin, its 300,000 acres of rubber . . . not 

 a tithe of these developments could have been achieved had malaria remained 

 uncontrolled. . . . The most recent and most sensational triumph of the applica- 

 tion of these principles has been the construction of the Singapore Naval Base. 

 Without malaria control this great work must have cost countless lives, if indeed 

 it could have been completed at all. To the great credit of the military authorities 

 the health problem has been handled with such success that the lay world has 

 not known there was one, and those great works have been carried out virtually 

 without affecting the vital statistics of Singapore. 



In 1913 1 crossed the Straits of Malacca to Sumatra, to meet Profes- 

 sor Swellengrebel, who was to play a most important part in the con- 

 quest of malaria. In Sumatra, less than 100 miles from Singapore, 

 I found to my astonishment a totally different malarial picture; for 

 the disease was confined almost entirely to the mangrove forest zone, 

 with A. sundaicus as the enemy. Hill streams, which would have been 

 so dangerous in the Malay Peninsula, were harmless in Sumatra. In 

 Java the picture is practically the same, although in both there are 

 occasional outbreaks of disease away from the coast, the cause of which 

 although interesting would take too long to explain. 



Sumatra is much less populated or cultivated than Java. Indeed 

 Java is an almost continuous slieet of wet rice, of which it would prob- 

 ably be true to say that over 95 percent is free from malaria. Sumatra 

 and Java both differ in yet another way from Malaya. They are vol- 

 canic islands, belonging to the great volcanic chain fringing South 

 and East Asia, including also the Celebes, the Philippines, Formosa, 

 and Japan. 



