The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

August. 1927 The Health Bulletin 29
SEE ARTICLE ON MALARIA IN THIS ISSUE
We are publishing elsewhere in this
issue an article on malaria by Dr.
C. C. Bass of New Orleans. This
article was published in Hygeia two
years ago, but it is just as timely today
as it was then. Dr. Bass is an
internationally known authority on
malaria; he was president of the
Southern Medical Association in 1926,
and this little article of his is written
in every-day language that is easy
for a child even to understand. It
will pay any person in North Carolina
who lives in an area where contraction
of malaria is possible to read
this article carefully.
There were ninety-one deaths fi'om
malaria reported by doctors in the
State of North Carolina in 1926.
Nobody
knows how many cases of chills
and fever, the common name by which
malaria is mostly known among the
people, are present in comparison to
each death reported. It has been
variously estimated from ten to fifty
cases. One thing every doctor knows
who treats malaria in this State and
that is that it is seldom a direct cause
of death. Like hookworm infection,
it contributes to physical delinquency
and is for the most part a long drawnout
process taxing the strength of any
individual who contracts it and who
does not procure a positive cure soon
thereafter, into months and years of
suffering.
As we have repeated in these
columns at various times for the last
ten or twelve j'ears, malaria is a disease
that may occur anywhere in the
world. There is no need for any
citizen of North Carolina to become
sensitive over the fact that his doctor
tells him that he has malaria contracted
on his own premises. This is
liable to occur anywhere from Alaska
to the Panama Canal. Naturally the
localities which favor most the breeding
of the kind of mosquitoes which
transmit the disease from person to
person will be most afflicted by the
presence of malaria.
The State Health Officer of South
Carolina recently reported in a public
discussion at a meeting that a certain
town in South Carolina spent
fifteen dollars per capita to completely
rid the town of mosquitoes.
He said that it was worth many times
over the cost
because the malaria infection
fell from about 90 per cent.
of the population each summer to
zero. There certainly can be no argument
against that official's statement
that it was worth the money, especially
to the people in the afflicted
town.
Naturally the viewpoint of the
State Board of Health of North Carolina
with reference to malaria is a
hopeful one because, as we have
pointed out in the past, the utilization
of modern methods in dealing
with the malaria mosquito menace,
and also the adoption of other
methods of protection against infection
by the population, coupled with
the fact that improved drainage and
agricultural activities in many sections
previously known as dangerous
areas of infection, are serving to reduce
the menace from malaria to insignificant
proportions. There should
be no let-up, however, in the activities
directed against this disease as long
as there is one single citizen of North
Carolina suffering from the infection
contracted anywhere in the State.
Turn right now and read Dr. Bass's
article.
Social Worker: "And what is your
name my good man"
The Convict: "999."
Social Worker: "But that's not your
real name, is it"
Convict: "Naw. That's just my pen
name."—The Virginia Tech.