Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/528

522 quitoes to malaria he says: 'This is a piece of knowledge of the utmost importance to mankind, for we know that malarial disease in tropical countries. . . causes more deaths and more disposition to death by inducing cachectic states, predisposing to other affections than all the other parasites affecting mankind together.' The italics are our own. This is a most startling statement to the ordinary layman, yet it comes from one who knows whereof he speaks.

Celli, the celebrated Italian authority on malaria, tells us that the mean mortality statistics give about 15,000 deaths yearly from malaria in Italy. He further says that, "calculating from the number of deaths the number of patients, we arrive approximately at about two million cases a year." "The loss of labor and of production, and the expenses entailed in dealing with this disease consequently amount to several millions of francs." About five million acres of land go uncultivated or very improperly cultivated, which represents an enormous loss. One railway company spends on account of malaria one million fifty thousand francs ($200,000) a year. He sums up by saying, 'one can positively assert that malaria annually costs Italy incalculable treasure.'

Our own statistics on malaria are meager and not so clear cut as one could wish. Yet the figures of the twelfth and last census which is just now appearing are enlightening, as the following table taken from that census will show. I have selected the six diseases that cause the most deaths in the states considered. There are no other diseases that approach near enough to these in their death rate to demand serious consideration or comparison.

It must be borne in mind that these figures concern only those deaths that were reported. Scores of deaths occurred in these states that were never reported. But it no doubt is safe to assume that the deaths from one disease were reported as fully as those from another, hence we can with fairness use these figures for making comparisons.

In the first place then, considering malaria by itself in relation to the total number of deaths in each of the five states mentioned, we find the following generalizations to be true. The total number of deaths in Louisiana for the year ending May 31, 1900, was 20,955, of which 1,030 or very nearly one twentieth were from malaria fevers. In