Then came the fifth and final triumph--the prevention of the disease.
The anti-malarial crusade which has been preached by Sir Ronald Ross and
has been carried out successfully on a wholesale scale in Italy and in
parts of India and Africa, has reduced enormously the incidence of
the disease. Professor Celli of Rome, in his lecture room, has an
interesting chart which shows the reduction in the mortality from
malaria in Italy since the preventive measures have been adopted--the
deaths have fallen from above 28,000 in 1888 to below 2000 in 1910.
There is needed a stirring campaign against the disease throughout the
Southern States of this country.
The story of yellow fever illustrates one of the greatest practical
triumphs of scientific medicine; indeed, in view of its far-reaching
commercial consequences, it may range as one of the first achievements
of the race. Ever since the discovery of America, the disease has been
one of its great scourges, permanently endemic in the Spanish Main,
often extending to the Southern States, occasionally into the North, and
not infrequently it has crossed the Atlantic. The records of the British
Army in the West Indies show an appalling death rate, chiefly from this
disease.
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