The call of the dark continent : a study in missionary progress, opportunity and urgency . rs the climate has presentedfar less difficulty than formerly. Thestudy of tropical diseases (their origin,prevention, and cure), the modern con-veniences of housing, such safeguards aspreventive netting and mosquito-proofdwellings, the introduction of railway andsteamboat (reducing the difficulties oftravelling through malarious country)—these things have greatly reduced, thoughby no means removed, much of the dangerto the life and health of a Europeanmissionary. The old idea that malaria is caused byno
The call of the dark continent : a study in missionary progress, opportunity and urgency . rs the climate has presentedfar less difficulty than formerly. Thestudy of tropical diseases (their origin,prevention, and cure), the modern con-veniences of housing, such safeguards aspreventive netting and mosquito-proofdwellings, the introduction of railway andsteamboat (reducing the difficulties oftravelling through malarious country)—these things have greatly reduced, thoughby no means removed, much of the dangerto the life and health of a Europeanmissionary. The old idea that malaria is caused bynoxious vapours rising from the earth hasbeen disproved by recent scientific re-search. The Report of the MalariaExpedition makes it certain that infectionis communicated by one kind of mosquito—the Anopheles—and almost certain thatthere is no other way of getting it exceptby Anopheles puncture.* The Reportsuggests that the disease should be called * This theory was first proposed in 1886 by A. F. King, ofAmerica, and was confirmed and accepted by scientistsgenerally in 1899. I J i. § 1 Conditions Affecting Work in Africa 205 gnat fever. But not every bite of theAnopheles gives malaria. The Anophelesmust itself have the microbes in its body(got by feeding on a malarial person) ; andof the Anopheles dissected in Sierra Leone,only 18 per cent, were found to be in-fected. The fact that the Anophelesrarely feed in the day time makes the useof mosquito curtains necessary at Anopheles larva requires a certainkind of pool to live in, and these pools arenot to be found in some places, and can begot rid of in others. The Report thinksthat Sierra Leone could be rid of thesepests, but not Lagos, as it is too flat andhas too many Anopheles pools. The deadly sleeping sickness of Ugandaand the Congo valley, and the cattle-disease prevalent in East Africa, are dueto microbes carried by two varieties of theTsetse fly. These important discoveries suggest 2. Mosquitosthat malaria
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