310 
MALARIA 
Mt. Olive, a suburb of Birmingham, Ala¬ 
bama, in 1937. These houses were examined 
in 1940 after 3 years’ use. They were all 
occupied and in good condition and were 
reported to be unusually cool in summer 
and warm in winter. 
There is a real need for study of rural 
housing by health agencies, looking toward 
specifications which would permit con¬ 
struction at a cost of $100 per room. 
Rammed earth construction of homes of 
simple design, the forms for which might 
be made available through a county agency, 
may be a partial solution of the problem. 
Construction with conventional materials 
does not appear to offer hope that the goal 
is attainable. 
Mosquito-Proofing 
While improved housing is necessary for 
satisfactory and durable mosquito-proofing, 
health workers are reluctant to wait until 
such a profound change can be brought 
about in areas where secondary control mea¬ 
sures are indicated. Mosquito-proofing is 
not an easy task in the average rural house 
in areas of endemic malaria, for malaria 
apparently begets poor housing through 
lowering the economy, and the mild climate 
of the deep South is certainly not conducive 
to special efforts to making the houses tight 
as protection against extremes of tem¬ 
perature. 
Some of the principal difficulties encoun¬ 
tered in mosquito proofing these houses, 
most of which are constructed of poor- 
grade lumber are: (1) Cracks in the floors 
between the planks which also frequently 
sag due to inadequate support; (2) cracks 
and knot holes in the walls and ceiling (in 
some cases there are no ceilings); and (3) 
deteriorated door and window frames hav¬ 
ing such uneven faces that replacement is 
necessary for adequate fitting of screens 
and doors. 
In spite of the poor condition of most 
rural houses in the South, health organiza¬ 
tions have developed reasonably effective 
methods of rendering them mosquito-proof, 
and there have been notable eases of mass 
mosquito-proofing, some of which deserve 
mention. 
In about 1927 the Lake County, Tennes¬ 
see, Health Department undertook the pro¬ 
motion of a county-wide screening program 
which in the next 3 years resulted in some 
improvement to practically all rural dwell¬ 
ings in the county (Meleney and Crabtree 
1934). 
In 1926-1928, C. P. Coogle, epidemiolo¬ 
gist with the U. S. Public Health Service, 
directed the screening and mosquito proof¬ 
ing of 500 rural houses in LeFlore County, 
Mississippi. The experiences on this and 
other work in Mississippi were set out in 
bulletins for use of others engaging in the 
work. A control of nonmosquito-proofed 
houses was established for observation in 
the LeFlore County work, and the differ¬ 
ences in malarial rates in the two areas is 
given in the following table: 
Effects of Screening on Malarial Rate 
a 
o 
Screened houses 
Unscreened houses 
Year of 
observati 
Year 
screened 
No. 
houses 
No. occu¬ 
pants 
Cases 
malaria 
No. 
houses 
No. occu¬ 
pants 
Cases 
malaria 
1926 
1926 
104 
416 
24 
104 
467 
84 
1928 
1927 
500 
2057 
206 
500 
2140 
814 
This screened area was visited by the 
writer in October, 1940. Most of the door 
frames were found to be in serviceable con¬ 
dition, although the original screen wire 
was gone in many cases. Some of the orig¬ 
inal window screens located in protected 
places were in serviceable condition. Some 
limited maintenance had been carried out 
by the owners or occupants of the houses. 
In 1930 representatives of the Alabama 
State Department of Public Health visited 
the mosquito-proofing work in Tennessee 
and Mississippi for the purpose of obtain¬ 
ing information on methods and proce¬ 
dures. Subsequently, for a period of about 
2 years, organized effort at mosquito-proof¬ 
ing was carried out in a number of Ala¬ 
bama counties. The volume of the mos¬ 
quito-proofing resulting was not large, but 
