CHAPTER VIII 



SUMMARY OF THE ANTIMALARIAI, CAMPAIGNS 



In his " Researches on Malaria " Ross very truly 

 remarks that " malarial fever is important not only 

 because of the misery which it inflicts upon mankind, 

 but because of the serious opposition which it has 

 always given to the march of civilisation in the tropics. 

 Unlike many diseases, it is essentially endemic, a local 

 malady, and one which unfortunately haunts more 

 especially the fertile, well-watered, and luxuriant tracts 

 — precisely those which are of the greatest value to 

 man. There it strikes down not only the indigenous 

 barbaric population, but, with still greater certainty, the 

 pioneers of civilisation — the planter, the trader, the 

 missionary, and tlie soldier. It is therefore the principal 

 and gigcuitic aUij of Barbarism. No wild deserts, no 

 savage races, no geographical difficulties have proved so 

 inimical to civilisation as this disease. We may also say 

 that it has withheld an entire continent from humanity 

 — the immense and fertile tracts of Africa ; what we 

 call the Dark Continent should be called the Malarious 

 Continent ; and for centuries the successive waves of 

 civilisation which have flooded and fertilised Europe 



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