Epidemic malaria and construction works / by A.G.H. Smart.

  • Smart, A. G. H.
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemic malaria and construction works / by A.G.H. Smart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    KPIDEMIC MALARIA AND CONSTRUCTION WORKS. Bien Gest OMAN), Ms Dab. MM. &H., Assistant Health Officer, Government Service, Singapore. Paper presented to the Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Received September, 1914. While I was in Kedah, during the early part of this year, the State had under construction a water scheme, by which certain streams at an elevation of about three hundred feet were being tapped, and a service line was being brought down to Alor Star, the capital, a distance from the head works by road of about twenty miles. The plan attached shews the different streams, viz.:—the Sungei Terjun and the Sungei Bertam, which united on a level with the coolie line marked “A,” to form the Sungei Wang. ‘There were two large settling tanks nearly completed, each with a capacity, of four hundred thousand gallons, and a large pipe took the water from each, these pipes joining practically where the streams met to form the main going down to Alor Star. The Terjun is the more important of the two streams from the point of view of these notes. It followed a fairly direct course through a rocky channel of quartzite formation, with steep hill slopes covered with jungle coming down on either side. Construction work commenced in May, 1913, and a labour force was brought to the site at the head of the Sungei Wang. In the beginning the health was good, and on the 28th June, out of one hundred coolies, eleven were unfit for work, of whom five had malaria, probably infected before arrival. On July 11th, the health was reported not so good, with an undue percentage of sick. On the 30th of September, the labour force numbered two hundred and eighty coolies, and the percentage of sick was only three and a half, not all malaria, there being a certain amount of ankylostomiasis present. All the coolies were supplied with mosquito nets during September. On the 7th of November, out of three hundred and fifty coolies, only seven were unfit for work, and of these five had malaria; but on the 30th of December, the State Surgeon reported on his visit that the health was ‘ Out of a total of three hundred coolies, only half this number could turn out to work, practically all the sickness being due to malaria. In ‘nearly as bad as possible.”
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