Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.Giles, George Michael James
Science
Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.
Giles, George Michael James
Hygiene -- Popular works; Medical climatology; Tropical medicine
During such periods the latent parasites, which have been perhaps for
months lying hidden in the internal organs, will reappear in the blood
in large numbers, and there are always a sufficient number of such cases
of relapse persisting through the naturally malaria-free season, to
suffice to infect the early broods of mosquitoes that come to maturity
with the advent of the rains.
This shows that the curing of all cases of malaria is matter by no means
confined to the interests of the patient himself, but is of great
importance to the entire community of which he is a member; for, despite
the fact that the disease is only indirectly transferable through the
agency of the mosquito, a case of malaria is as great a danger to his
fellow-men as one of any other infectious disease, and should, as far as
possible, be dealt with in the same way; only the problem of isolation
is in this case easier than usual, as it suffices to prevent mosquitoes
getting access to the sick person; and in a properly fitted
mosquito-proof house or hospital, malaria cases may quite safely be
allowed to mix freely with the healthy, as well as with persons affected
with other diseases.
Relapses in persons chronically infected with malaria may occur at any
time of the year, but the fresh infections, which always form the bulk
of the cases met with, can only happen as the result of a tolerably
recent bite by an infected mosquito; and as about a couple of weeks are
required for the maturing of the parasite within the insect, and a
further period of incubation is necessary within the human subject
before the parasites attain sufficient numbers to produce a definite
constitutional reaction, fever does not as a rule commence in earnest
until some three weeks or a month after the break of the wet season.
Once the process is started, infected mosquitoes and malaria-stricken
men increase in numbers rapidly, and as numbers of infected mosquitoes
survive for a considerable period after the cessation of the breeding
season, the prevalence of malaria continues until the advent of cold
weather puts a period to the possibility of the survival of the parasite
within the insect organism. Hence it is generally quite possible to give
a fair idea of the monthly distribution of rainfall in any warm climate
from the returns of sickness and mortality, and _vice versâ_.
The natural history of the living organisms that are concerned in the
propagation of malaria has been described with some detail, as suitable
measures for the prevention of the disease must needs be based on a
fairly competent knowledge of the subject, and is the more necessary as
it is hardly possible to give any “rule of thumb” directions; because
the circumstances on which the prevalence of malaria depends vary so
greatly in different localities that, to ensure success, our operations
must necessarily be modified in each case to meet local conditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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