392 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1952 



against malaria to the national level by the formation of the Servigo 

 Nacional de Malaria, with Mario Pinotti as director. The Rocke- 

 feller Foundation, with its strong interest in the world-wide control 

 of malaria, has been cooperating in the Brazilian campaigns both be- 

 fore and after the organization of the Servigo Nacional. 



The recent upsurge of malaria in Santa Catarina began about the 

 time that the Servigo Nacional de Malaria was organized. It was 

 particularly bad in the cities and pressure was strong for the local 

 branch of the Servico to do something quickly. Drainage campaigns 

 had been very successful in other parts of Brazil, so drainage was 

 tried around several cities before there was time for investigation of 

 the causes of the disease. 



Fortunately, the Servigo had been busy meanwhile investigating 

 the mosquito carriers, and soon discovered that the malaria in Santa 

 Catarina and adjoining areas was wholly of the bromeliad type. 

 Three species of mosquitoes were identified as carriers, Anopheles 

 bellator, cruzii, and homunculus, each with different habits and cov- 

 ering a different area (Pinotti, Rachou, and Ferreira, 1947) . It is 

 interesting to note, however, that all were found in houses in large 

 numbers, in contrast to the behavior of bellator in Trinidad. 



Having located the breeding places of the malaria carriers the next 

 problem was how to eradicate them. Owners of forest land were 

 loath to have the value of their property destroyed, so at first a 

 program of hand removal of bromeliads was tried. This program 

 ran into the same difficulties encountered in Trinidad except that they 

 were generally worse on account of the taller forest. One exception 

 should be noted, the city of Florianopolis, where hand removal made 

 significant progress against malaria because of the location of the 

 majority of the bromeliads on the ground. However, it soon became 

 evident that the whole program, although pointed in the right direc- 

 tion, was quite inadequate to deal with the disease and it was 

 abandoned. 



The situation now was desperate. Cities such as Brusque had so 

 many workers ill that industries were preparing to move out bodily. 

 Schools were hard hit also ; two-thirds of the students of the Semi- 

 nario de Azambuja were hospitalized at one time. The only alter- 

 native was to deforest a belt around the cities, and this the Servigo 

 proceeded to do under the direction of Mario Ferreira. Pittendrigh 

 was called in to help formulate the plans and give the benefit of his 

 experience in Trinidad (Ferreira, 1948). 



The major part of the deforestation program required 3 years, but 

 by the end of the first year there had been a sharp drop in the in- 

 cidence of malaria. In the end, the program was a success, with 

 malaria virtually eliminated from the cities. Early in 1952 I spent 



