166 MALARIA 



occurred there. The same thing on a much larger scale was 

 accomplished in the Canal Zone at Panama by Surgeon-General 

 Gorgas and his staff. On this relatively large malaria-infested 

 area the death rate for the total population of about 100,000 was 

 reduced 64 per cent in four years. The deaths from malaria 

 were reduced about 85 per cent in less than four years, and yellow 

 fever was totally eradicated. Similar feats have been accom- 

 plished at Havana, Staten Island, and other places. One of the 

 most recent examples of what can be done was furnished by the 

 American occupation of Vera Cruz in 1914. The American troops 

 were severely attacked by malaria of all three types, and an anti- 

 mosquito campaign was immediately inaugurated. It cost the 

 Sanitary Department $5000 a month to oil the pools, drain the 

 low parts of the city and its environs, and dispose of the standing 

 water in street gutters, refuse heaps, etc., but in a few months 

 Vera Cruz, one of the most deadly malarial districts in the world, 

 was practically freed from Ajiopheles, and danger of malaria 

 reduced to almost nothing. 



Obviously the wholesale reduction or extermination of malarial 

 mosquitoes can be accomplished only by communities or by 

 government aid. San Antonio has freed itself of mosquitoes 

 and mosquito-borne diseases by enlisting the services of the 

 school children. In our southern states, where there are 

 65,000,000 acres of swamp land, and where the chief malarial 

 mosquitoes are swamp breeders, malaria can never be destroyed 

 until state and federal governments are willing to invest monej^ 

 as readily to take water off the land in these parts of the country 

 as they now invest it to put water on the land in the arid western 

 parts. 



Much can be done toward reduction of malaria in selecting 

 dry brushless sites for houses and in constructing them in mos- 

 quito-proof fashion. The houses one sees in the American 

 Government settlements on the Canal Zone, built well up off 

 the ground and with open sleeping porches, wide verandas and 

 air}' windows, all carefully screened, are ideal for tropical dis- 

 tricts where malaria and other insect-borne diseases are common. 

 They present a happy combination of airiness, sanitation, and 

 complete protection from insect pests. 



In well-known malarial districts it is a good personal safeguard 

 to use screens as much as possible and to take regular doses of 



