152 MALARIA 



marked that district as its own. By taking such precau- 

 tions as are indicated above, the peasants and railway 

 signalmen have, during the last few years, for the first 

 time, escaped the disease ; whilst for the first time new- 

 comers to the district have failed to contract it. The 

 intelligent activity of the Italian Government, and the 

 well-known interest taken in the question by the King 

 and Queen of Italy, cannot fail to have a profoundly 

 beneficial effect upon the lives of some of the poorest 

 and most hard-working of European peasantry. 



The problem in Africa is more complex, owing 

 to the fact that the native population is thoroughly 

 permeated with the parasite. Mr. Christophers and 

 Dr. Stephens, in their ' Further Reports to the Malaria 

 Committee,' have shown that the children of natives 

 are in the great majority of cases infected with malaria. 

 In one village where the Anopheles was found in ' con- 

 siderable numbers,' 90 per cent, of the babies suffered, 

 57 per cent, of the children up to eight years, 28 per 

 cent, of the children up to twelve years, after which 

 age the children were 'very rarely infected.' This is 

 but one example out of many, all tending to show that 

 after a time a certain immunity to the disease is 

 acquired, and, further, that travellers should as far 

 as possible avoid the neighbourhood of native villages, 

 and, above all, decline to sleep in native huts. 



The destruction of the mosquito, at any rate in 

 neighbourhoods inhabited by man, is a matter of 

 difficulty, but is worth attempting. To expect to 

 destroy the mature insect seems a vain thing, but the 

 larva can be more easily dealt with. Anopheles — 

 unlike the common gnat, which breeds close to 

 houses, in cisterns, garden fountains, old tubs, drains, 

 etc. — prefers rain-water puddles, natural hollows by 

 the roadside, small ponds, and rice-fields. We have 

 occasionally found the larvae of Anopheles and Culex 

 in the same water in England, but this is probably 



