Some Preventable Diseases of British Guiana. 141 
matters. It must be either our doing so, or being content to remain as we are 
and rest satisfied with a high death-rate, and larger sickness-rate, and consequent 
loss of labour. 
Professor Ross in his recent work “The Prevention of Malaria,’ under 
section 38 gives what he calls some “ General Sanitary Axioms ” : and number 
3 of these axioms reads :— 
“For economic reasons alone, Governments are justified in spending for the 
prevention of such diseases a sum of money equal to the loss which the diseases 
inflict upon the people.” After the word “* Governments ” we here could very 
well add ~ or proprietors of labour, ” and in place of the words “‘ are justified ” 
we might read “ would be well-advised in.” 
As I have already mentioned, sections 179 to 187 give all Local Authorities 
power to insist on a sufficient water-supply for their districts, and explicitly 
state how such a supply is to be obtained and the penalties incurred by those who 
wilfully neglect to comply with the law. 
DisEASES CONVEYED BY INSECTS. 
The ones that concern us chiefly here are: Malarial Fevers, Yellow Fever 
and Filariasis 
Malarial Fevers :—Everyone knows nowadays that the kind of mosquito 
which conveys these fevers, is the Anopheles. In British Guiana, the chief 
carriers are the Cellia albipes and argyrotarsis, of the Anopheline family. 
Everyone has heard of the huge campaigns which have been so successfully 
carried out in certain other countries, and most people here seem to be quite 
satisfied that any such campaign in this Magnificent colony, would be quite out 
of the question. Being so satisfied, they seem to think that there is nothing 
further to be done, beyond telling everybody else that we have no money to 
spend on “ these wild-cat schemes of a few cranks.” Ii my memory serves me 
aright, these very words were used by one of the leading papers of the colony 
only a short time ago ! 
I will deal with the preventive measures on estates and villages separately. 
Estates :—Within the last year or so, undoubtedly a great deal had been 
done on estates generally, through the instigation of the Medical Department. 
A lot more remains to be accomplished however. 
The chief prophylactic measure which is at present in force is the admin- 
istration of quinine. This in conjunction with the other recognized anti- 
malarial measures is no doubt admirable. But when depended upon alone, 
to the exclusion of other methods, it can hardly be expected to do more than 
help to check a noticeable increase in the malarial rate. 
Prof. Ross in his ‘‘ Prevention of Malaria’’ quotes several interesting conclusions 
given by Dr. Malcolm Watson on the result of his work in the Malay States. 
Some of these are well worth drawing attention to:-- “.. eee a WLILO 
