The prevention of malaria.

  • Ronald Ross
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The prevention of malaria. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    and in weedy margins, etc. In Mauritius prefers verandas to inner rooms, and bites in the open, especially after 11 p.m. Takes shelter from wind, but wanders far on windless nights. Pyretophorus myzomyiafacies (?).—Incriminated by Ed. Sergent (section 52), who says that the protospores have been found in it. Occurs in Algeria, especially in broken, hilly valleys. Pyretophorus superpictus.—Grassi seems to think that it is a malaria carrier [German translation, p. 219, 1901], but apparently gives no evidence. Also Bignami and Bastianelli think that it is a carrier. Occurs in the South of Italy, Spain, Greece, Algeria, and (?) Africa and India. Carries Filaria immitis. This concludes the Anophelines regarding which we have been able to find any reliable experiments, but other species are mentioned as being possible or certainly carriers, but without giving the evidence. Thus Oswaldo Cruz (section 47) says that Cycloleppteron mediopundaium Theobald and Lutz, Cycloleppteron intermedium Chagas, and Arri- balzagia pseudomaculipes Chagas, are undoubtedly carriers, as shown experimentally. C. Daniels, in a letter to me of the 17th June, says that C. kochii is the constant in badly malarial suburbs in the Malay States, and is absent or scanty in other places. A. treacheri (Stet/wmyia fragilis Theobald) was the only mosquito which he could find in badly malarial jungles. He adds that it was difficult to make any experi- ments with these two species, as they will not live in confinement, and says : The trouble with these, as with several other mosquitos, is that whilst you cannot absolutely include them because there is no positive proof (experimentally), you cannot exclude them because there is no negative proof (experimentally), and the circumstantial possible evidence is strong. Laveran mentions two species which he calls pursati and martini as being carriers; but the entomologists appear not to accept them as species. Obviously much more exact work requires to be done even on this point, which is so important for public prevention, C. S. Banks [1907] states in a lergthy paper that he cultivated Plasmodia in Myzomyia ludlowii Theobald, a Philippine Anopheline which breeds in rivers and streams and also in sea water, and that he inoculated a healthy person by its means; but certain points in his description suggest doubts as to the nature of the bodies which he considered to be malaria parasites.