266 



MALARIA 



Government : " The results of our experiment, 

 which has lasted nearly six months, have been so 

 uniform and unequivocal, that they cannot be 

 regarded as accidental. We may assume that it 

 is directly owing to the measures we have adopted 

 that malaria here has, in a comparatively short 

 time, almost disappeared." 



This method, of course, is applicable only in 

 small communities ; and, within these limits, it may 

 become one of the most valuable of all methods, 

 being, like the quality of mercy, a blessing both to 

 him who gives and to him who takes it. But it 

 cannot be practised on a vast scale. This difficulty 

 is well put by Sir William MacGregor, K.C.M.G., 

 Governor of Lagos, West Africa : — 



" In all probability, the day will come before 

 long, when newly-appointed officers for places like 

 Lagos will have to undergo a test as to whether 

 they can tolerate quinine or not. A man that 

 cannot, or a man that will not, take quinine, should 

 not be sent to or remain in a malarial country, as he 

 will be doing so at the risk of his own life, mid to 

 the danger of others. . . . The great difficulty is 

 how to extend this treatment beyond the service, 

 more particularly to the uneducated masses of the 

 natives. It is simply impossible to protect the 

 whole population by quinine administered as a 

 prophylactic. In the first place, the great mass 

 of natives would not take the medicine ; and, in 

 the second place, the Government could not afford 

 to pay for the 70 tons of quinine a year that would 

 be required to give even a daily grain dose to each 

 of 3,000,000 of people." 



