THE TOLL OF THE MOSQUITO 



Country 



Period 



Aggregate 

 population 



Deaths 



Rate per 

 100,000 



Mauritius 



Nicaragua 



British Honduras. . 

 Straits Settlements. 



British Guiana 



Philippine Islands . 



Venezuela 



Panama Canal Zone 



Porto Rico 



Costa Rica 



Ceylon 



Cuba 



Spain 



Italy 



1910-14 

 1908-11 

 1914-15 

 1910-14 

 1911-15 

 1909-13 

 1908-12 

 1911-15 

 1911-15 

 1911-15 

 1910-14 

 1910-14 

 1906-10 

 1909-13 



1 



2, 



3, 

 1 



,842,561 



180,000 



83,268 



,596,554 



516,710 



29,472,283 



13,525,191 



677,792 



4,675,044 



1,999,545 



20,817,228 



11,561,416 



96,717,000 



173,356,885 



21,686 



15,859 



491 



19,818 



6,385 



117,139 



41,331 



949 



3,793 



1,251 



11,304 



2,535 



10,930 



17,399 



1,176.9 



727.5 



589.7 



551.0 



421.0 



397.5 



305.6 



140.0 



81.1 



62.6 



54.3 



21.9 



11.3 



10.0 



ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE OF MALARIA 

 "It is not in the death-rate, however, that the gravest injury 

 of malaria lies," declares Carter. 1 



"It is in its sick-rate; in the loss of efficiency it causes, rather than in 

 the loss of life. One death from pneumonia should correspond to about 

 125 sick-days — work-days lost; one from typhoid fever to 400 to 500 

 sick-days; one from tuberculosis to somewhat more than this among 

 whites, decidedly less among negroes. A death from malaria, however, 

 corresponds to from 2,000 to 4,000 sick-days. This loss of efficiency 

 may really be doubled or trebled, for the man infected with malaria is 

 frequently half sick all the time. 



"And it is the amount of malaria, when it is bad, which appalls. 

 If 1 per cent of the population is stricken with typhoid fever, it is an 

 epidemic, and a bad one. Contrast this with 40 per cent to 60 per cent 

 of a population per annum affected with malaria, and I have seen 

 outbreaks with 90 per cent, and you gain some idea of the importance 

 of this disease. The loss of efficiency caused by malaria in the malari- 

 ous section of the South is beyond comparison greater than that caused 

 by any other disease, or even by any two or three diseases combined, 

 including typhoid fever and tuberculosis. 



"lam not speaking at random. You have never heard of the preva- 

 lence of typhoid determining the failure to locate industrial plants. 

 Yet, at one place where power was abundant and very cheap, the 

 manager told me that a number of options for cotton mills, wagon 

 factories, etc. — options which had been taken because of the cheapness 

 of the power — had been abandoned because of the prevalence of malaria. 



1 The Malaria Problem of the South," U. S. Public Health Service, 1919. 



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