58 



hesitation, the local sanitary staff was ordered to commence 

 the obvious remedy the extirpation of mosquitoes.* 

 Hence it can scarcely be denied that such vigorous action 

 is at least possible. 



But the British authorities are made of different stuff. 

 They love to ponder things. They will go on pondering 

 for twenty years. It is twenty years since MANSON proved 

 that mosquitoes carry elephantiasis ; but I believe I am 

 right in saying that in not a single spot in the whole of 

 the British dominions has a single effort been made during 

 all this period to control this disease on a large scale by 

 means of HANSON'S discovery. The mosquito-malaria 

 theory has been fully established for nearly three years ; 

 but, except in Hong-Kong and Lagos, I doubt whether 

 the authorities have yet saved a single life by attention to 

 its teachings.! 



The fact is that the Imperial sanitary and medical ser- 

 vices of the country are very badly organised. They are held 

 rigorously under the thumb of the soldiers, lawyers, tax 

 collectors, and politicians who manage our public affairs, 

 and most of whom care little for sanitation, and certainly 

 know nothing about it. This seems a hard thing to say, 

 and certainly there are exceptions (e.g. t the governments of 

 the West Coast of Africa now) ; but the statement is 



* Major Gorgas reports September, 1901, "As to yellow fever, there has 

 never been an approximation to this condition (the freedom of Havana from 

 the disease) at any time in the last 150 years. This is the first year, during 

 that period, in which we have known that yellow fever was conveyed by the 

 mosquito ; and, during February, the Military Governor directed that our 

 disinfection be carried out on these lines. I attribute our very surprising 

 results to this fact." See also the campaigns at New York in the Appendix. 



f Twenty years elapsed before LAVERAN'S discovery was generally used 

 in our tropical hospitals in the diagnosis and treatment of fever. 





