126 HAPPY INDIA 



suggested when it is proposed to remove all the 

 possible breeding-places in a country like India. 



Of course, in the hot, dry season there will be no 

 puddles ; the only places where water can be found 

 will be in rivers, canals, lakes and tanks. As a general 

 rule, however, the mosquitoes do not travel very 

 far, and if your house is 200 yards away from a 

 breeding-place you are not likely to be much 

 troubled with mosquitoes, although they may come. 

 But during the rainy season there must be any 

 amount of puddles and little streams and places 

 where mosquitoes could breed, and one can well 

 understand that the authorities consider that it is 

 too great an undertaking for them to carry out the 

 advice of Sir Ronald Ross, and so from three to five 

 million people in India die of this malaria every 

 year. It is not like cholera, a disease that takes 

 you one day and kills you the next or within a week ; 

 it is a disease that you may have for years inter- 

 mittently, but it reduces your vigour. Probably to 

 one person who dies in a year there are ten who are 

 ill, perhaps a much larger number. 



There is no medicine known that will prevent 

 it or cure it. I say this notwithstanding the fact 

 that it is believed by many people that quinine is 

 both a preventative and a cure for the disease, but 

 I believe the greater part of the people of India do 

 not consider that quinine will cure them or prevent 

 it. I met two English medical men in India who 

 gave their lives to the study of the question. One 

 of them said that he took small doses of quinine 



