CHAPTER IX 



NOTES ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF PLANTATIONS AND 

 BOTANIC GARDENS TO THE iMOSQUITO QUESTION 



Many interesting facts in connection with malaria have 

 been brought to hght by observations conducted by 

 medical officers charged with the supervision of the 

 health of labourers employed upon large estates. 



Tobacco Plantations. — Dr. Kuenen, on a visit to 

 Liverpool in 1909, told us how in his district malaria 

 had been reduced by drainage. Dr. Kuenen, who is 

 Director of Pathology at Medan, Sumatra, has the 

 medical care of tlie workers upon a large tobacco 

 estate. The whole of the coast of Sumatra is notorious 

 for its bad forms of malaria. When, forty years ago, 

 the first tobacco planters went to Sumatra, they found 

 a big marshy jungle and many swamps, and they 

 suffered much from malaria. As the plantations grew, 

 drainage operations were very carefully undertaken, for 

 it was found that the finest kinds of tobacco could only 

 be grown as the result of very careful drainage, and the 

 suitable drying of the soil ; in consequence, the swamps 

 had disappeared, and they were now as free from 

 malaria on the plantations as Holland itself. Malaria 



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