Photo from A. W. Cutler I 



PRIMITIVE SANITATION : BUZZARDS AT VERA CRUZ FOLLOWING A SCAVENGER^ CART 



These birds are protected by law and may be seen strutting sedately about the streets 

 in every direction. They are largely responsible for the present excellent sanitary condition 

 of Vera Cruz, now looked upon by the Mexicans as a health resort. 



most every country in the world. It plies 

 its nefarious trade day in and day out, 

 year in and year out, killing its millions 

 of souls, some directly, but more through 

 undermined constitutions which have 

 permitted other diseases to be written 

 upon the death registers. 



We do not have to travel to the tropics 

 to see humanity living in close contact 

 with the malarial mosquito and appar- 

 ently indifferent to the ravages of the 

 disease. Dr. L. O. Howard, perhaps 

 America's foremost authority in economic 

 entomology, estimates that the financial 

 loss inflicted at home upon the people of 

 the United States by malaria amounts to 

 a hundred million dollars a year. 



Sir Ronald Ross gives an idea of the 

 extent, economic consequences, and geo- 

 graphical influence of malaria when he 

 says that it kk is important not only be- 

 cause of the misery it inflicts upon man- 

 kind, but because of the serious opposi- 

 tion which it has given to the march of 

 civilization in the tropics. Unlike many 

 diseases, it is essentially endemic, a local 

 malady, and one which unfortunately 



haunts more especially the fertile, well- 

 watered, and luxuriant tracts — precisely 

 those of greatest value to man. There 

 it strikes down not only the barbaric in- 

 digenous population, but, with still greater 

 certainty, the pioneer of civilization, the 

 planter, the trader, the missionary, and 

 the soldier. 



"It is therefore the principal and gi- 

 gantic ally of barbarism. No wild des- 

 erts, no savage races, no geographical 

 difficulties, have proved so inimical to 

 civilization as this disease. We may say 

 that it has withheld an entire continent 

 from humanity — the immense and fertile 

 tracts of Africa ; what we call the Dark 

 Continent we should call the Malarious 

 Continent ; and for centuries the succes- 

 sive waves of civilization which have 

 flooded and fertilized Europe and Amer- 

 ica have broken themselves in vain upon 

 its deadly shores." 



Africa affords no statistics of the wide- 

 spread prevalence of malaria, but in 

 India, which at its worst is better than 

 Africa, nearly five million souls died of 

 fevers in a single year recently, and the 



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