272 



MALARIA 



healthiness " of the African coast is to some extent 

 due to the life that men lead there : — 



" Let us compare the habits of a European in 

 a business-house in Calcutta with the habits of a 

 European in West Africa. In Calcutta he sleeps 

 under a punkah or mosquito-net, or both ; he 

 dresses and breakfasts under a punkah ; in the 

 evening he takes vigorous exercise, and he dines 

 under a punkah. He wears the lightest possible 

 clothing, he lives in a solid, cool, airy house, and he 

 obtains very good food ; once in five or six years, 

 he returns to Europe for leave. ... In Africa, the 

 houses are frequently very bad ; in Freetown, for 

 instance, they are the same as the houses of 

 natives, and are mingled with them. The Anglo- 

 African seems to imagine that he can live in the 

 tropics in the same manner as he lives in England. 

 He seldom uses a punkah, except perhaps for an 

 hour at dinner-time, and, not seldom, he neglects 

 even the mosquito-net. The food is often, or 

 generally, execrable. Owing to the frequent 

 absence of gymkanas and clubs, the exile obtains 

 little suitable exercise." 



But whatever risks the old resident may choose 

 to take, the newcomer can at least use a proper 

 and efficient mosquito-net at night, and avoid 

 sleeping in a native house, and protect himself in 

 these and the like ways against malaria. 



4. The keeping down of Anopheles. The breed- 

 ing places of Anopheles are ponds, swamps, and 

 puddles, roadside ditches, tanks, and cisterns, old 

 disused canoes, and the like collections of stagnant 

 water : also the smaller receptacles that are more 



