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Hon. Dr. Strachan are dealing with the disease on a large scale in Lagos. Dr. Logan Taylor and myself (Liver- pool School Expedition), with the assistance of the governor, Sir Charles King Harman, are undertaking the reduction of mosquitoes in Freetown, Sierra Leone, with a considerable degree of success already obtained. In Havana, the chief sanitary officer, Major Gorgas, during 1901, has entirely banished yellow fever, reduced malaria by one-half, and diminished the number of mosquitoes by 90 per cent. approximately. Much work of the same kind is said to have been done in Italy.
All these laborious investigations have resulted in giving us a very complete and exact knowledge of malarial fever; so much so that we can now, generally, both prevent and cure the disease with something like certainty. Thus for example, of the numerous scientific men who have been studying the disease for years in the most deadly places, nearly all have escaped anything like serious illness, and most have escaped infection.
It is necessary to add here that as soon as the difficult problem regarding the exact mode in which malarial fever is propagated was solved, a number of foreigners made the usual efforts to pirate the whole discovery. As a matter of fact the problem was solved solely and simply by my researches of 1895-9, based upon the profound inductions of Manson and Laveran. Koch and Daniels were the first to confirm my work by really honest and reliable researches.
The relation between elephantiasis and mosquitoes was discovered by Manson more than twenty years ago; but quite recently Low, under Manson's guidance, and James in India added a most important fact.
The relation between yellow fever and mosquitoes was discovered by Finlay, Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agramonte.
