﻿156 The Philippine Journal of Science i9i4 



parasite, which in certain phases of its human cycle is practically 

 absent from the peripheral blood circulation. 



As for the so-called "splenic index," I share the belief held by 

 a number of tropical workers that it is a very fallible criterion, 

 especially in the presence of other anaemia-producing conditions, 

 such as those which prevail at San Jose. It has a certain value, 

 however, and so far as it goes it gives support to the clinical 

 findings of malaria in San Jose. 



In 1911, Schapiro reported a general splenic index of 17.7 per 

 cent at San Jose, based upon an examination of 333 persons. 

 For those under 16 years of age he found the splenic index to 

 be 37+ per cent. From the same report we learn that in 

 January, 1911, the estimated mortality rate per annum, based 

 upon the month's deaths, was 88 per thousand, or 8.8 per cent. 



The matter of the physical condition of the inhabitants of the 

 near-by towns, while interesting and undoubtedly bearing 

 considerable weight upon the problem before us, is less im- 

 mediately important than is generally supposed, and it is cer- 

 tainly less so than the cure of the sick at San Jose. At San Jose, 

 we have a present population of 3,000 persons, a large per- 

 centage of whom are infected with malaria. The combined 

 population of the other towns and barrios of southwestern Min- 

 doro, within a radius of 24 kilometers, does not approach this 

 total. We have also to bear in mind the fact that to convey 

 malaria to the San Jose sugar estates the human malaria carriers 

 from these settlements must visit San Jose and encounter anophe- 

 line mosquitoes, or that laborers, women, or children from the 

 sugar camps must visit the infected barrios and encounter in- 

 fected anophelines. 



The company's surgeon believes, not without some apparent 

 reason, that, given complete control of the anopheline mosquitoes 

 at San Jose, a condition which he believes to be actually attain- 

 able and even now measurably accomplished, the visiting malaria 

 carriers will not constitute a menace to the inhabitants. He 

 then needs only to fear that the uninfected people from San 

 Jose will visit the barrios and towns and there acquire malaria, 

 and he needs only to safeguard the members of this traveling 

 population during their excursions and observe them after their 

 return, treating such as acquire malaria while absent from the 

 estates. 



Theoretically sound, at least in part, this proposition appears 

 to me to be absolutely impracticable of application and bound 

 to result disastrously for several reasons. 



One of these reasons is the impracticability of ever, or at 



