MOSQUITOES AND MALARIA. 13 



ciency of the parties was reduced, at a A-ery conservative estimate, by 

 25 per cent. 



" In my recent visit in this field I found one man sick in each of 

 the parties I saw and one man who had just returned from the 

 hospital leaving the field for good. A similar state of things was 

 reported from the other parties. I regard the sickness as practically 

 all of a malarial nature, as extreme care was taken in all the camps 

 to use nothing but boiled water except in a few instances where arte- 

 sian water from great depths was available. In all the camps the 

 tents have been screened, and in every case where the topographer has 

 lived for any time 'on the country' there has been infection. As 

 illustrating the value of the precautions generally taken by our camp 

 parties, I might cite the fact that last year in West Virginia with 30 

 men living in camp, with typhoid fever prevalent in the neighborhood, 

 no cases developed, while with G men living on the country wdiere 

 the same care could not be taken regarding the water supply, two 

 cases of typhoid developed." 



In estimating the weight of Doctor Smith's statement, it must be 

 borne in mind that the men of his field parties are exceptionally in- 

 telligent and prepared to take all ordinary precautions. 



Throughout the region in question malaria is practically universal. 

 The railroads suffer, and at the stations throughout the territory it is 

 practically impossible to keep operators steadily at work. This re- 

 duction in efficiency in the surveying parties and in the local railroad 

 officials is moreover probably very considerably less than the reduc- 

 tion in the earning capacity of the entire population, which, however, 

 is necessarily scanty. 



In an excellent paper entitled " The relation of malaria to agricul- 

 tural and other industries of the South," published in the Popular 

 Science Monthly for April, 1903, Prof. Glenn W. Herrick, then of 

 the College of Agriculture of Mississippi, after a consideration of 

 the whole field, concludes that malaria is responsible for more sick- 

 ness among the white population of the South than any disease to 

 which it is now subject. The following forcible statement referring 

 to the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South 

 Carolina is in Professor Herrick's words: 



" We must now consider briefly what 635,000 or a million cases of 

 chills and fevers in one year mean. It is a self-evident truth that it 

 means well for the physician. But for laboring men it means an 

 immense loss of their time together with the doctors' fees in many 

 instances. If members of their families other than themselves be 

 affected, it may also mean a loss of time together with the doctors' 

 fees. For the employer it means the loss of labor at a time perhaps 

 when it would be of greatest value. If it does not mean the actual 

 loss of labor to the employer it will mean a loss in the efficiency of 



