3 io SOME MINUTE ANIMAL PARASITES 



needs, were it not for the presence of disease due 

 to various parasitic Protozoa. What, then, is the 

 remedy for this state of affairs ? The solution seems 

 twofold. There must be an increase in the study of 

 the parasitic causes of disease, combined with active 

 preventive measures against the transmitters of the 

 same. Malaria has been largely conquered by 

 systematic attention to anti-mosquito measures and 

 the use of quinine. Yellow fever in the West Indies 

 is now no longer a constant feature since the deter- 

 mined onslaught on the breeding-places of the 

 Stegomyia was made. The United States does not 

 suffer such bad losses in cattle as it did a few years 

 ago, for the quarantining of stock against ticks has 

 produced a marked effect. Even human trypano- 

 somiasis has declined in places since the natives 

 were removed from the banks of streams frequented 

 by Glossina palpalis. 



Much, then, can be accomplished, but still an 

 enormous amount of instruction is needed before 

 communities as a whole will take action, and the 

 plea of the scientist may aptly be described as that 

 of the voice crying in the wilderness. The amount 

 of resolution displayed by the ignorant in refusing 

 to carry out the simplest of sanitary reforms is 

 amazing, though it is equalled by the determination 

 to have nothing to do with anything that has not 

 been sanctioned by long custom. Until education 

 on subjects so intimately connected with the welfare 

 of the Imperial Dominions as the life-histories and 

 significance of parasitic Protozoa is much more 

 widely diffused, the rate of progress will be slow. 



