Dec. 1906.] 



50!) 



Correspondence. 



Ceylon prides itself in being an up-to-date colony, and certainly it is in some 

 respects, in agricultural science for instance ; but few will deny that it is sadly 

 behind the age in sanitation and preventive measures generally. Lakhs of rupees 

 are spent on the cure of disease, but how much on prevention ? Would the sanitary 

 state of the small towns and villages stand the test of a close inspection ? An 

 attempt is made by the Medical Department to deal with sanitation aud prevention of 

 disease, but the efforts are quite inadequate, nor can we expect anything else. 



The staff of the Medical Department are not trained in the "prevention" of 

 disease, "cure "is their province. What is wanted is a separate staff, properly 

 trained, to see to the sanitation of all towns and villages, including estates, in 

 Ceylon. Employers of labour, especially in the low-country, would surely welcome 

 any measures obviously so much in their own interests, The only opposition would 

 be from the ignorant and stupid. I believe in the case of the work done at Klang 

 and Port Swettenham, in Selangor, Federated Malay States, also Ismailia, referred 

 to in the letter given by Mr. Green, some of the staff of the Liverpool School of 

 Tropical Medicine, were sent out to advise as to the best means of carrying on the 

 campaign against malaria and other diseases of a preventable nature. Let the 

 Ceylon Government take the same steps. The members of the staff would find 

 a good field in Ceylon for their labours, and if any of them were of an investigating 

 turn of mind, like Dr. Ronald Ross, of their school, whose researches have been of 

 such incalculable benefit to mankind, they would find an interesting field for their 

 investigations in the evident connection between the prevalence of malaria and the 

 opening of clearings. That the Anopheles mosquitoes are a medium for the spread 

 of malaria is an established fact, that they are the only medium is an open question. 



One of the suggestions of the Commission might well be that more promi- 

 nence should be given in schools to the teaching of the laws of cleanliness and 

 sanitation. The sickness and death in low-country districts have this year been terri- 

 ble. I have been told by a friend who has spent most of his life amongst low-coun- 

 try Sinhalese, and whose experience is not to be questioned, that a large majority of 

 the deaths are preventable, they are due to the ignorance and apathy of the people. 



The chief obstacle to the development of the country along the Northern 

 Railway is its unheal thiness. Can nothing be done to mitigate this state of matters ? 

 Experience gained in other colonies goes to show that something can be done. 



Yours faithfully, 



PLANTER. 



[We referred this letter to the Principal Civil Medical Officer, who remarks 

 as follows.-ED. "T,A."] :— 



"The question of improved sanitation is purely one of money— the small 

 towns which have Local Boards of Health do as much as their funds will allow to 

 improve sanitation, and the tendency is to advance on those lines. The officers of 

 the local Medical Department are specially instructed in sanitation and in the 

 prevention of disease, and they have to pass an examination in these subjects. 

 Estate Superintendents can do a great deal by insisting on the prevention of 

 fouling the soil, improving the water supply and the drainage of swamps. The 

 suggestion of a special sanitary staff is good but hardly necessary — if money could 

 be got for combating malaria, the present medical staff is competent to advise 

 where the money should be spent. 



It is futile to compare individual places like Port Swettenham, Ismailia, etc, 

 with Ceylon as an island. Such places should be compared with Negombo or 

 Kalutara. To tackle Ceylon as a whole is well nigh impossible, with its paddy fields, 

 floods, lagoons, and swamps, and its borrow pits along every line of railway. 

 The Government sent a special officer to report on the drainage of the Jaffna 



