268 



MALARIA 



children were in apparent health, but often contained 

 large numbers of parasites, and a small proportion 

 only of the children failed to show some degree of 

 infection. . . . The Liverpool School Expedition 

 found a similar condition of affairs in all parts of 

 Nigeria visited by them. 



"With a knowledge of the ubiquity of native 

 malaria, the method of infection of Europeans 

 becomes abundantly clear. The reputed unhealthi- 

 ness or healthiness of stations is seen at once to be 

 dependent on the proximity or non-proximity of 

 native huts. The attack of malaria after a tour 

 up-country, the malaria at military stations like 

 Prah-su, the abundance of malaria on railways, are 

 all explicable when the extraordinary condition of 

 universal native infection is appreciated. It is 

 evident that, could Europeans avoid the close 

 proximity of native huts, they would do away with 

 a very obvious and great source of infection. . . . 

 When it is understood that each of these huts 

 certainly contains many children with parasites in 

 their blood, and also scores or hundreds of Anopheles 

 to carry the infection, then the frequency with which 

 Europeans suffer from malaria is scarcely to be 

 wondered at. . . . The accompanying plan is that 

 of a new railway settlement on the Sierra Leone 

 Railway. Miles of land free from huts exist along 

 the line, but the close neighbourhood of native huts 

 has been selected. At the time of building of these 

 quarters, it lay in the power of the engineers to have 

 a malaria-free settlement ; instead of which, by the 

 non-observance of a simple fact, the station is most 

 malarious : in this particular instance, much in- 

 genuity has been shown in providing each set of 

 European quarters with plenty of malarial infection. 

 In towns only is there any difficulty in carrying out 



