86 N. J. Mosquito Extermination Association 



Recent Advances in the Knowledge of the Problem of 

 Malaria Control 



BY DR. FREDERICK HOFFMAN, THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE 

 PRUDENTIAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY. 



Mr. President and gentlemen: I think one real discovery that 

 I have made has been the revelation of how mudh of this sub- 

 ject can be effectively condensed into a few words by so youth- 

 ful a mind, and in so charming a way that it is more likely to 

 reach the minds of those whom we are anxious to reach than all 

 the learned discussions which we ourselves may give it. 



You may be doing a very good piece of work, and if you do 

 not know how to tell the story you may fail. And if there is any 

 one thing that seems to me deplorable about malaria eradication 

 and mosquito extermination, it is that the facts related to it are 

 so generally unknown to the public at large. I would like to make 

 a suggestion that at the next meeting you have an exhibit in con- 

 nection with the work, and that you show in the adjoining hall, by 

 large scale maps and diagrams and illustrations and photographs, 

 the real work that you are doing, as you can never hope to throw 

 on the screen or set forth in a fifteen or even a forty-five minute 

 speech. I think the time has come for such a display of the col- 

 lective knowledge, the collective wisdom on this subject, and it 

 would attract attention away beyond the confines of this state. 



I have said this before, but I shall keep on saying it until it 

 brings fruit: that we must learn to present the facts of our work 

 as effectively and as thoroughly as they do abroad. I have here 

 in my hand, for illustration, a small report by a local government 

 board of England, a report with a number of excellent maps, a 

 very learned discussion of about 178 cases of malaria. Now that 

 is science, that is wisdom, that is real evidence of government, 

 that you make a great deal of hullabaloo, about the beginning of a 

 disease and the introduction of the disease in a country where it 

 does not belong, or where at least it has not been endemic for a 

 great many years, and where the menace of its introduction, be- 

 cause of the fact that the Anopheles mosqiutoes are common 

 throughout south England, is clearly recognized. 



Now that is real effective publicity — no nauseating propaganda; 

 no claim is made as to what can be done or what cannot be done. 



