Address on Malaria to the Congress at Eastbourne.)

When I was a student of medicine, we were taught that malaria was not an infectious disease—i.e., not transmissible from person to person—and that it was originated by inhaling bad air. It was regarded as the type of the miasmatic as contrasted with the contagious diseases. What a change has taken place since then! Now we know that malaria can be transmitted when one injects the blood of a malaria patient into the body of a healthy person, a case, indeed, which does not occur under natural circumstances. We know, also, that malaria is not caused by gaseous substances, but by micro-organisms which belong to the category of the animal parasites, are imbibed by gnats or mosquitoes with the blood they suck, further developed in the bodies of the gnats, and finally inoculated into healthy human beings again. So, according to the views now prevalent, malaria cannot possibly be produced without the co-operation of two factors, namely, the malaria-parasites and the mosquitoes or gnats. It is a matter of course that so complete a transformation of our views as to the nature of malaria has led to a corresponding transformation of opinion regarding the measures to be taken against it. In former times they knew only one means of getting rid of malaria, namely, the drying-up of swamps, a means which unfortunately admits of application only to a comparatively small extent. Attemps were therefore made to support this measure by planting certain plants, such as the eucalyptus and the helianthemum, of which it was believed that, by their large consumption of water, they could deprive the soil of its swampy character. Now a number of other measures, based on better knowledge of the etiology of malaria, have been proposed, of which the following are the most important: Firstly, people are advised to avoid the neighbourhood of malaria patients, and to fix their abodes at least one mile from places where malaria prevails. Secondly, it is proposed to exterminate the malaria-transmitting mosquitoes by destroying their larvae at the accessible breeding-places. Thirdly, human beings are to be protected against the mosquitoes by wire nets for their dwellings and by gloves and veils for their hands and faces. Fourthly, efforts are to be made to exterminate the malaria-parasites by the rational use of quinine.