It may at once be premised that to no other country of the same 

 size is the subject of malaria of greater importance than it is to Lagos. 

 Its economic and industrial future very largely depends on whether 

 malaria can be successfully combated or not. Lagos has been a 

 malaria centre that has earned a very unenviable reputation. It is 

 very favourably situated for commerce ; geographically it is the 

 natural port of outlet of the great interior province of Northern 

 Nigeria. It seems clear enough that practically only two things are 

 wanting to make Lagos a great and prosperous commercial town, by 

 far the greatest in West Africa. These two things are the extension 

 of the Lagos Railway to Northern Nigeria, and the control of malarial 

 fever. The two undertakings are in practice closely connected to- 

 gether, and perhaps malaria is not the less important of the two. 

 Both are practicable, but malaria is the more urgent, and therefore 

 should be dealt with first. Malaria can also be coped with on a 

 greater or lesser scale in proportion to the means available from time 

 to time. Some of the steps now being taken in Lagos to combat 

 malaria will be mentioned herein, more particularly from the point of 

 view of the administrator. 



It may be admitted at once that at Lagos, as probably everywhere 

 else, the academic rules of procedure cannot in any one direction be 

 carried out with scientific minuteness and detail. The measures 

 adopted must be such as can be accomplished by the men and money 

 at disposal ; and as these coefficients will very likely not be on the 

 same scale in any two British colonies, the attack on malaria will 

 doubtless be planned out di-fferently according to local circumstances. 

 Were there ample funds at disposal the measures now taken in Lagos 

 would be different from what they actually are at the present time. 



It has been felt to be an important preliminary necessity that every 

 effort should be made to acquaint with the general principles of the 

 present malarial doctrine, not only the Europeans resident in this 

 country, but also the natives of every degree of civilisation. For this 

 purpose the reports of Professor KOCH on his Eastern expedition, in 

 which he demonstrates so effectively the specific action of quinine on 

 malaria, have been translated and published in suitable pamphlet 

 form, and have been widely distributed. The same course has been 

 adopted with regard to Professor CELLI'S very convincing report on 

 the use of mosquito netting on the Italian railways. Extracts have 

 similarly been published and distributed from the reports of English 

 expeditions and from other similar English works, including a paper 



