ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS 5 



Howard comments on this table as follows : "Esti- 

 mating from the preceding table, the average annual 

 death rate due to malaria is 4.8 per 100,000 popula- 

 tion, and considering that the registration area includes 

 only sixteen of the northern states (assuming fairly, 

 however, that the death rate in the other northern 

 states is the same), it seems reasonably safe to conclude 

 that the death rate from malaria for the whole United 

 States must surely amount to 45 per 100,000. It is 

 probably greater than this, since the statistics from the 

 south are city statistics, — and malaria is really a 

 country disease. Yet this will give an annual death 

 rate from malaria of nearly 12,000 and a total number 

 of deaths for the same period (1 900-1 907) of approxi- 

 mately 96,000." 



Expensive to the State. — The best available statistics 

 to set forth the economic importance of malaria for 

 any one state are given us by the California State 

 Board of Health. In 1909 there were 112 deaths 

 from malaria in this State, with an average age of 

 forty-four years at death. The table given us by the 

 State Board of Health is based on these facts and the 

 economic significance is shown in the various losses 

 due directly or indirectly to the disease. 



No doubt, a similar table of expenses for any one of the 

 more malarious central and southern states would show 

 a correspondingly great loss, but nowhere in the Union 

 are the possibilities for eradication so good as in Cali- 

 fornia, owing to the long, dry summers. 



