1 76 THOMPSON YATES LABORATORIES REPORT 
The native huts of the village should have been avoided in the first instance, 
and, indeed, for a house to be placed close to a village can be looked upon now 
only as a folly. In many cases the European has it in his hands to move to a less 
dangerous neighbourhood, or even to get the huts themselves done away with. 
By such simple means would malaria be successfully combated. By such 
means stations now deadly with malaria might be rendered healthy. Not only is it 
the case that quarters already erected may be improved, but quarters not yet erected 
may be made healthy or unhealthy as they are erected with the principle of segregation 
in view or with the principles which have hitherto prevailed. 
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 ingenuity has been shewn in providing 
each set of European quarters with plenty of malarial infection. 
Before malaria is lessened among Europeans in Africa it must be generally 
recognised that malaria is practically an infectious disease, and that it is present in 
every native hut. 
2 A T'own Residence. In towns only is there any difficulty in carrying out 
the principle of segregation. In two instances, however, this has been carried out in 
towns with the result that the segregated communities of Europeans are notoriously 
the most healthy on the West Coast. 
Even when no scheme of complete segregation can be carried out, the 
principle should always be borne in mind, and, whenever opportunity offers, huts 
should be removed and European houses built in the open. Possibly segregation 
will be even more beneficial in dealing with new settlements and new towns than 
with those already built among bad surroundings. 
One thing is certain, that no scheme but segregation offers the least promise 
of a wide success in Africa. 
