FILARIA IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 135 



mosquito would be the first explanation, of this phenonicnoii that would 

 suggest itself, but the demonstration of the al)ility of the omnipresent 

 Culex fatigans Wied. to transmit the disease renders this theory im- 

 jirobable. An explanation of this erratic distribution is furnished by 

 Wanhill ^ from Jamaica, which island is said to be free from filariasis. He 

 says that while Jamaica has no filariasis it is highly malarious, while 

 the neighboring Island of Barbados which has no malaria shows a 

 high percentage of filarial infections. Prom these facts and observations 

 upon a subject of filariasis, who later developed malaria, he evolved a 

 theory of an antagonism between the malarial and the filarial parasite. 

 The hypothesis is interesting at least," and as no better explanation is 

 at hand, it might be well to look into the frequency of malaria in the 

 filarial centers of these Islands, and if the observations of Wanhill were 

 confirmed, experimental work might possibly give us a biological remedy 

 in filariasis where drugs have proved entirely unavailing. 



Supplementary note.— Since the presentation of this paper, exami- 

 nations have been made of the blood of 250 American soldiers of the 

 Tyenty-sixth Infantry, who have been stationed for eighteen months 

 at Camp Darago, Albay, in the most highly infected filarial district of the 

 Islands. Contrary to expectation, no case of infection was found. This 

 result would seen to indicate that, with ordinary precautions, protection 

 of white people from filariasis is not a difficult matter. 



^ Journ. Roy. Army Med. Corps (1906), 6, 56L 

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