African Affairs 44:171-176 (1945)
© The Royal African Society
Malaria Control for Rural Populations
This article forms the concluding part of a lecture by the Director of the Ross Institute of Tropical Hygiene, on the 24th July. Dr.Macdonald opened with a discussion on the present state of malaria research, details of which may be found in the Bibliography. His discussion mainly turned on the point whether children who are particularly susceptible should be allowed, by repeated infection to develop immunity in adult life. He himself was opposed to this method— in an investigation in Sierra Leone, he had discovered that 42 per cent of school children had a pathological temperature. On the other hand, Dr. Wilson, in Tanganyika, came to a diametrically opposite conclusion, and this view holds the field in East and Central Africa to-day, especially in rural areas. Dr. Worthington, in Science in Africa, has stressed the need for research; but, quoting evidence from Sierra Leone, Tanganyika, and Nyasaland, Dr. Macdonald is of the opinion that prima facie evidence shows that malaria does cause ill-effects on a large scale, malaria causes large child mortality, and in adult life, it causes varying degrees of instability.