AGUE

or malaria, or intermittent fever, is a fever common in marahy districts in various parts of the world. Since the fens have been drained it has become extinct in England, though commonly met with in those who have returned from the tropics. The cause, which has been discovered recently, is a microscopic parasite living in the ~ blood. Infection is spread by a certain species of mosquito, _ the Anopheles, which sucks the blood of a man suffering from malaria, and in doing so takes in the parasite also. The parasite lives and multiplics in the body of the mosquito and produces spores, which pa into the salivary glands. When the mosquito bites it iiacharees saliva to make the blood flow, and in so doing injects the spores of the malaria aah into the person bitten, who then becomes a victim malaria. So far as is known infection is only spread by the Anopheles, the grub of which lives in marshes and it is from this fact that marshy districts are malarious, and not, as ey thought, because the marshes give off poisonous gas which causes malaria. The prevention of malaria is a if Africa is Mes to be white man’s country. Organised attempts to destr © Anopheles are now being made in many places. They consist in the draining of all small near the towns and in pouring oil on the surface of the ponds to kill the Aiicphalae in its grub stage. The inhabitants also protect their windows with fine netting to keep the mosquito out, and they avoid being out after sunset as much as po ible, because the re only feeds by night. Zhe treatment of malaria has long been known; quinine is the drug used, it acts by killing the parasite in the bloed. By returning to a temperate climate re-infection with fresh supplies of parasites is avoided and the original ones gradually die off or are killed by quinine. AIR is e ential to life. If withheld death results within three minutes. Pure air is e ential to health, and inattention to this elementary fact is responsible for-more disease than aor other cause. The air is compored of a mixture of gases, of which oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid gas or (as it 18 now called) carbon dioxide, and water vapour ere the chief. Animals in breathing absorb oxygen and give out carbon dioxide and water, and also certain organic impurities. It is to the last of these that the odour of a stuffy room is due, not to the carbonic acid, which is comparatively harmle . Plants in a small degreo breathe like animals, taking oxygen in and giving carbonic acid out, but when the sun shines their aaa es do just the opposite, they take in the carbon dioxide and break it up into oxygen, which is set free, and carbon, which is retained and built up inte starch. By this interaction of plants and animals the composition of the air is kept e entially the same in all parts of the world and from one ycar to the next. The air of the mountains and of tho sec a-shoro is rich in another ingredient, ozone, which is highly stimulating, and it is largely to this that mountain and sca owe their value as hoalth restorers. Ozone is produced everywhere during a thunderstorm, the beneficial results of which are appreciated by all. The air of towns is often contaminated by street dust, composed of dried horse-dung, by smoke, and by the acid emanations from certain factories. These are sources of danger to the public health. The air of workshops is of great importance to the health of the workers, especially in regard to the amount of dust it contains, a3 inhaling dust for hours every day induces lung disease. Much good can be done by wise factory laws in connection with this matter. [Refer also to Ventilation}. [s. 330]