REDEEMING THE TROPICS 



357 



Prompt restrictive measures were taken, 

 a quarantine was set up, vaccination 

 against the disease was resorted to, and 

 10,000 carabao were imported from Asia 

 to take the places of the ones the small 

 farmers had lost. All these measures 

 promptly served to put an end to the 

 epidemic and the Philippines were once 

 more safe from a live-stock famine. 



With the mastery of the secrets of the 

 tsete fly and its fatal bite on live stock, 

 England has set out to render Africa in- 

 habitable to horses and cattle wherever 

 the English flag floats over it. Anthrax 

 fever is going the same way, as is the 

 fever caused by the cattle tick. Perhaps 

 as much has been done in the direction of 

 rendering the tropics habitable to our 

 domestic animals as has been done for 

 ourselves. 



In the generations to come, there can 

 be no doubt that with a sanitary science 

 that is broad enough to reach both man 

 and beast, the great plains of the high- 

 lands in the tropics will be converted 

 into vast cattle ranches, where cattle can 

 be brought to the stock cattle stage and 

 then shipped to the temperate climates 

 for feeding and finishing, thus adding to 

 the world's meat supply to the extent of 

 billions of pounds. 



THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE CHANGE 



The discoveries that have brought 

 about this era of control of tropical dis- 

 eases have a deeper significance than 

 would appear upon the surface. Not 

 only do they bring health and at least a 

 greater degree of happiness to the hun- 

 dreds of millions of human beings who 

 live in the tropics, but also to the over- 

 crowded temperate zones a prospective 

 relief from the great food shortages that 

 have been impending. 



We find the price of meat growing 

 higher every year as the grazing areas oi 

 the beef-producing countries have been 

 encroached upon for farming purposes. 

 Each generation finds the corn and the 

 wheat areas of the world growing smaller 

 in proportion to its population, and it has 

 become evident that if humanity is to 

 continue to be well fed it must look to 

 the tropics. 



Here, indeed, lies the hope of the 

 world's future food supply. Untold mil- 



lions of tons of provender might be 

 raised where now dense jungles of un- 

 profitable vegetation grow. What the 

 United Fruit Company has done with the 

 banana may be repeated with innumer- 

 able crops. Panana flour might take the 

 place of wheat flour, and so on down 

 through the category. 



Meanwhile, with the restrictions im- 

 posed by disease removed, tides of im- 

 migration might set into the tropics, 

 populating them with people who would 

 cease to be a drain upon the food sup- 

 plies of the temperate zones and become, 

 on the contrary, contributors thereto. 

 Tropical deserts may be irrigated, trop- 

 ical swamps drained, tropical jungles 

 tamed, and millions of acres of the rich- 

 est land on earth added to the productive 

 areas which feed and clothe the world. 

 These times are coming not rapidly, but 

 with a stride certain and inevitable as the 

 world's population is increasing. 



And what benefits they must bring to 

 the race ! New blood in the tropics is 

 needed. The suns of centuries have 

 burned out much of the initiative, the 

 easy methods of gaining a livelihood 

 have taken out much of the thrift, and 

 the lazy ways of the tropics have elimi- 

 nated much of the natural love of clean- 

 liness of the people. New blood coming 

 in may change these things to a very ap- 

 preciable degree, and an even newer and 

 better era of public health may ensue. 



A CAEE TO DUTV 



W T hen one contemplates what the he- 

 roes of medical science have made pos- 

 sible, and reflects that they have put into 

 the hands of humanity powerful weap- 

 ons of knowledge with which to combat 

 our most deadly diseases, he cannot avoid 

 feeling that their efforts will have been 

 partially in vain unless all humanity is in- 

 duced to aid in the work of capitalizing 

 them. 



The world's death rate is probably 

 about thirty per thousand. He who clips 

 just one from that thirty saves more than 

 a million and a half of lives a year. In 

 a single quarter of a century the United 

 States clipped five from its death rate, 

 and if the world could only do as well in 

 the next quarter of a century as the 



