est here if we wish to attain promptly the end
proposed, namely, that of planting colonies in malarious districts without
exposing the colonists to grave danger. Even if we realize perfectly the
hope which I conceived in 1880, and if we are enabled to prove that
arsenic increases man's power of resistance to the assaults of malaria, we
must not imagine that everything is accomplished. It will take a long time
before the use of a preservative method of this kind becomes generalized;
we have first to contend against the fear which nearly every one
experiences when arsenic is mentioned, and then there will also be
difficulty in establishing everywhere a proper control over its
administration. In every attempt at the colonization of malarious regions
it will be necessary to combat for a long time the diseases caused by
malaria, and we must seek for a method of combating them by a means which
is in the possession of everybody, and which shall not be dangerous to the
general economy of the human organism. Those who do not know from actual
experience the miseries of a malarious country, think only of combating
the acute forms of infection, which often place the patient in danger of
death. But this danger, though great, is for the most part imaginary,
provided that assistance be obtained in time. But that which desolates
families, and which causes a physical degradation of the human race
exposed to the attacks of malaria, is the chronic poisoning, which
undermines the springs of life and produces a slow but progressive anaemia.
This infection often resists all human therapeutic measures, and is even
aggravated by the use of quinine, which is given during the recurrent
paroxysms of fever. Quinine is, when given for a long period of time, a
true poison to the vaso-motor nerves. The question, then, is to replace
quinine, and the alkaloids which possess an analogous physiological
action, by an agent the efficacy of which against, chronic malarial
poisoning may be greater and the dangers of its employment less.
THE LEMON FOR MALARIA.
A happy chance has led Dr. Magliori to the discovery of an agent of this
sort which was traditionally in use by certain Italian families. It is an
exceedingly simple thing--merely a decoction of lemon. It is prepared by
cutting up one lemon, peel and all, into thin slices, which are then put
into three glassfuls of water and the whole boiled down to one glassful.
It is then strained through linen, s
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