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SANITARY  MEASURES  AND  MALARIA 
EPIDEMICS  OE  ATHENS 
BY 
JOHN  CARDAMATIS, 
ASSOCIATE  PROFESSOR  OF  TROPICAL  DISEASES,  ATHENS. 
(Received  for  publication  2  June,  1909) 
It  is  well  known  that  for  a  good  many  years  past,  severe  and 
widespread  malarial  fevers  have  afflicted  the  inhabitants  of  the  two 
large  districts  of  Athens,  Pangrati  and  Vatrachonisi ;  and  according 
to  my  studies  since  1900  as  well  as  the  statistical  information  of  the 
local  doctors  of  the  above  two  districts,  there  has  for  a  long  time 
been  much  suffering  from  malaria.  The  morbidity  varied  between  25 
and  30  per  cent.,  not  counting  the  epidemic  of  the  years  1885,  1886, 
etc;  but  from  1901  to  1906,  before  putting  in  force  the  sanitary 
measures  and  during  the  epidemic  )/ears,  it  has  ranged  from  49^09 
per  cent,  to  92-85  per  cent. 
This  amazing  prevalence  of  the  epidemic  has  absorbed  the  entire 
attention  of  the  League ;  and  as  soon  as  the  League  was 
formed,  it  entrusted  me  to  explore  the  sources  and  causes  of  the 
malaria  fever,  and  to  ascertain  by  what  means  sanitary  measures 
could  be  carried  out  for  the  above  two  districts  of  the  city  of  Athens 
(whose  inhabitants  number  8,000). 
The  cause  of  the  said  epidemic,  as  I  ascertained,  was  the  Illisus 
river,  in  whose  pools  of  stagnant  and  polluted  waters,  innumerable 
legions  of  Anopheline  mosquitoes  were  hatching. 
In  these  stagnant  pools  I  observed,  in  1901 -1907,  only  one  species 
of  Anopheline,  viz,,  P.  superpictus,  but  in  my  research  during  the 
year  1908  I  discovered  a  new  species  of  Anopheline,  as  yet 
undescnbed,  different  from,  but  close  to  P.  superpictus ;  my  opinion 
z 
