Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/529

Rh Mississippi for the same year there were 20,251 deaths, of which 983 or a trifle less than one twentieth were from malaria fevers. In Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, taking these three states as a whole, a trifle less than one twenty-fifth of the whole number of deaths was due to malaria. Evidently then malaria is responsible for a surprisingly large part of the whole number of deaths in these five states.

But there is another and much more significant fact to be drawn from the afore-mentioned table. It is seen that, in general, consumption, heart disease, pneumonia and typhoid fever caused more deaths than malaria and these were the only diseases that did. But these diseases are much more fatal than malaria. That is, where one person sick with either of these four diseases recovers, dozens are sick with malarial chills and fevers and recover. In other words, malaria causes much more sickness than any one or all of those four diseases rolled in one. Taking Celli's own basis of estimate, we shall find that there were in the five states mentioned, approximately 635,000 cases of malaria in the year ending May 31, 1900, a factor truly appalling in its influence against the wealth-producing power of a people.

Again we must just here take into consideration the fact that the census figures do not give an accurate and full report of all the deaths by malaria. This is an important point because where one death from malaria is not taken into account a dozen or more cases of sickness from chills and fevers are not accounted for, whereas when one death by consumption is not reported, it is simply one death not reported and nothing more. The same is largely true of the other three diseases used in our comparison. There is not a doubt that the cases of sickness as a result of malaria would easily number a round million could we obtain full and accurate reports.

Finally by taking all the foregoing facts and deductions into consideration, we are forced to but one rather startling conclusion, namely, that malaria is responsible for more sickness among the white population of the south than any disease to which it is now subject.

We must now consider briefly what six hundred and thirty-five thousand or a million cases of chills and fevers in one year mean. It is a self-evident truth that it means well for the physicians. But for laboring men it means an immense loss of their time together with the doctor's fees in many instances. If members of their families other than themselves be affected it may also mean a loss of time together with the doctor's fees. For the employer it means the loss of labor at a time perhaps when it would be of greatest value. If it does not mean the actual loss of labor to the employer, it will mean a loss in the efficiency of his labor. To the farmers it may mean the loss of their