MALARIA EXPEDITION TO NIGERIA 257 
The explorer or traveller visits a native town and is entertained by the chief 
or other leading man, and passes on ; perhaps reaches a swamp or passes through 
districts where, it is said, mosquitoes do not occur : here, may be, he has an attack of 
fever contracted in the native town last visited, and in no way connected with the 
swamp which is usually blamed ; nor upsetting the mosquito theory because of the 
supposed absence of the insects in certain districts. 
The frequency of malarial fever among missionaries is no doubt explained by 
the manner in which they are continually exposed to infection in quarters frequented 
by native children — huts, schools, churches, etc. 
The possibilities of the adoption of the method of separation of the living 
quarters of Europeans from those of the natives in Nigeria are varied. 
In new stations at present in course of construction, or about to be constructed, 
the adoption of such a principle would at once stamp those stations for a healthy 
prospect. It is in this direction that the greatest amount of benefit is expected to 
arise. In Northern Nigeria, especially, and in Southern Nigeria, in the near future, 
when country at present commercially inaccessible to Europeans has been opened 
up, it cannot be too strongly urged how great is the opportunity for the trial of such 
an experiment — indeed, it can be hardly called an experiment, since, apart from the 
consideration of the immediate cause of infection by malarial fever by the agency of 
the mosquito, it is only common reason that the practice of surrounding oneself with 
a crowd of uncivilised or semi-civilised natives is an unhealthy principle. Now that 
malarial fever has been completely traced to this practice, no doubt it will be 
utterly abandoned. 
It seems to us quite as easy now to establish stations with a little care and 
judgment exercised in the selection of their sites, which shall be healthy, as it was 
previously, in ignorance, to create unhealthy ones. Jt must, however, be given as a 
caution that once established on the improved lines, that is, apart from native quarters, 
the vicinity of European dwellings must be kept strictly free from the encroachment 
of native huts — as such is from our observation the usual course of events, the 
presence of a European immediately attracts the native to settle close beside him — 
indeed, in some places this is exactly how the present evil conditions have been brought 
about. 
In Nigeria, the stations already established are with two or three exceptions 
only small. The European community seldom exceeds twelve in number. They 
consist of administrative, trading, and missionary stations. Many of the government 
quarters can be segregated with but little difficulty — at Bonny, for example, by 
removing the nearest native huts and re-arranging the accommodation for the ' Kroo ' 
boys and native servants — and at many places on the river Niger, where the present 
conditions of living are only temporary, more suitable and healthy sites could easily 
be acquired. With the trading stations, however, there is more difficulty since they 
