708 ANNUAL EEPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



Now, regarding the remedy. Science has, of course, shown abso- 

 lutely that the disease is carried by gnats, and, in doing so, has indi- 

 cated several methods of prevention. First, there is the method of 

 excluding gnats by the careful use of mosquito nets and wire-gauze 

 screens to the windows — useful for the houses of the rich, but too 

 costly and troublesome for the poor. Then, there is the method of 

 Koch, the cinchonization of all the patients, by which they them- 

 selves are benefited, while the gnats do not become infected and there- 

 fore do not spread the parasites ; but this implies rigorous dosing with 

 quinine for months — a thing which patients and the mothers of chil- 

 dren will not submit to. But the method which I first suggested and 

 elaborated in 1899, namely, the reduction of mosquitoes, is the one 

 which I prefer, and the one which, after seeing the conditions in 

 Greece, I prefer more than ever. It is, of course, the old Roman 

 plan of drainage against malaria, with this important difference, that 

 we are now no longer compelled to drain the w'hole surface of a 

 malarious area, but only those small pools in which the Anophelines 

 breed. This method has the immense advantage that it can be car- 

 ried out by local authorities without troubling the people; while in 

 the end it is sure to be more economical and lasting in its effects than 

 other methods which, I think, are apt to cause waste both of money 

 and effort. To Greece it is most especially applicable. There, the 

 rainy season is the w^inter, when the mosquitoes do not breed ; so that 

 in the arid summer they can find only very few suitable breeding 

 pools. So much the easier and cheaper will it be to treat these. They 

 can be rendered uninhabitable for the larvae by drainage, by filling 

 up, by deepening, by dragging the weeds, and in the last resort by 

 periodic oiling. A\^iere carried out with intelligence and loyalty, as 

 in Habana, the federated Malay States, and Ismailia, the work has 

 proved comparatively easy and cheap, while the results (now so w^ell 

 known) have been of the most brilliant kind. I think that Greece, 

 owing to the scarcity of surface water suitable for the larvse in the 

 summer, will be easier to deal with than any of these places — easier 

 even than Ismailia, with its irrigation system. It will be strange 

 indeed if so intelligent a nation can not carry out such simple meas- 

 ures in order to rid itself of a plague which has oppressed it for ages. 



The Grecian Malaria Society has commenced the work with energy. 

 It has investigated local conditions; has issued numerous tracts to 

 the people ; has urged railway companies to screen stations, and Gov- 

 ernment to undertake drainage. Doctor Savas suggests government 

 regulation of the sale of quinine in order to improve and cheapen 

 the drug — a most necessary item. At Athens, where malaria exists 

 only along the bed of the Ilissos, the stream has been " trained " in 

 many places. Presently I hope we shall see a survey made of the 

 malaria and the local breeding places in the whole of Greece, pre- 



