346 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,, 1942 



and drove the inhabitants, not for the first time, away from their 

 culture, their ricefields, their lovely architecture, and their carving. 

 Anopheles killed the people whenever they returned and tried to recol- 

 onize those areas. In Ceylon there are many monuments, but the 

 greatest is the ancient irrigation system. In every river there are a 

 large number of dams holding up the water ; that is necessary because 

 it is not unusual for there to be less than 20 inches of rain a year over 

 two-thirds of Ceylon. In 1934^35 an epidemic of malaria killed over 

 80,000 people in a few months. The cause was a drought ; absence of 

 the flushing of the rivers allowed A. cuUcifacies to breed in profusion. 

 It is a potent carrier of malaria in Ceylon. Today an organization 

 created and operated by the Government and the estates working in 

 close cooperation would prevent such a disaster occurring again; 

 indeed a recent drought even more severe than that of 1934-35 has 

 failed to produce an epidemic : very encouraging, but not unexpected. 



In West, Central, and East Africa there are two great carriers of 

 malaria. One, A. gamhiae^ lives in sunlit pools of still water; a water 

 current is fatal to it. The other, A. fimesfus, prefers slight shade, 

 slightly moving water. Dense shade blots out both species, as it blots 

 out A. rrmculatus in Malaya, and A. minimus in India. On the open- 

 ing of the great copper mines of northern Ehodesia, the population 

 suffered from malaria, blackwater fever, dysentery, typhoid, and other 

 diseases. The personal interest of Chester Beatty and his colleagues 

 and the exertions of the local staff have, however, been so successful 

 that the health of both whites and African employees compares fa- 

 vorably with that of the Panama Canal employees, and that is not a 

 low standard. 



Livingstone wrote in his missionary travels that the Lower Zambezi 

 was the most malarial area he had visited in Africa, and that even the 

 Portuguese suffered from the disease very severely. A few years ago 

 the great Lower Zambezi bridge was built across the river. Thanks to 

 the advice given by the Ross Institute through C. R. Harrison, a mem- 

 ber of the staff of the Ross Institute, the work was carried out wdth a 

 minimum of sickness. Actually only one European out of seven went 

 down with malaria. (The Times, October 31, 1934; Dixon, 1935.) 



There is some reason to hope that researches carried out by the Ross 

 Institute on mines in West Africa will open a new chapter in that 

 area. Unfortunately malaria is widely spread through Africa, reach- 

 ing south to Durban, and north into the oases of Egypt, Libya, Algiers, 

 and Morocco. In the equatorial belt it is intense ; it rises even into the 

 highlands of Kenya. Nairobi itself at 6,000 feet above sea level is not 

 free from the disease. 



Of Panama, you all know the great triumph of the United States 

 Government, guided by the genius of Surgeon General Gorgas. The 

 French failed because they had not discovered how to control malaria 



