Abstract
DETAILS of the activities of this Committee in promoting health in the tropics are given in the report of a meeting held on March 27, withi Mr. G. H. Mase-field in the chair. As a result of health measures introduced in the copper mines of Northern Rhodesia, at Zambezi Bridge, and in the tea gardens in Assam, sickness due to malaria has been much reduced. Dr. McCombie described an experiment in a tea garden with the drugs atebrin and plasmoquin as preventives of malaria, with a saving of 1,941 sick-days among the coolies, but the treatment is too costly to be a business proposition (11 annas per head). On the same estate anti-mosquito-larval measures proved much cheaper (2-6 annas per head), and resulted in a saving of 7,068 sick-days. Reference was made to the “eye-fly pest” in India and Ceylon, caused by numbers of a small fly (Microneurum funicola) which settle upon the eye, and by the bacteria which they carry induce ophthalmia. The breeding habits of this fly have still to be discovered, but by providing infected cases with wire gauze spectacles, these epidemics may be controlled in large measure by preventing carriage of infection.
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Ross Institute Industrial Advisory Committee. Nature 133, 905 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133905b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133905b0