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MALARIA

One of the most exciting races ever run is doctors fighting malaria and mosquitoes. Some health workers around the world are doing all they can to destroy malaria before the mosquitoes that pass on the disease become resistant to the poisons now used against them. It is a race against time and against difficulties, with millions of lives in danger and the chances of winning not in man's favour.
   The world health organization is helping national government to get rid of malaria be resistance among the mosquito population becomes so great that new poisons will have to be found to replace those in use at present. Most of the countries in the world have started campaigns against mosquitoes. If the race against resistance is won by man, it is possible that malaria will disappear. Malaria is the world oldest recorded disease. People recognized that there must be some connections between malaria and swamps, and some believed that insects living near swamps might be the carrier of disease. The Romans drained the swamps and reduced the mosquito population. This was the best method used for the next fifteen centuries.
   Not until 1632 did the Europeans find a successful treatment for the disease. The Spanish discoverers of the New World learned from the Indians of Peru that the bark of one of the trees growing there often ended a patient's attack of malaria. In the nineteenth century, French scientists found that quinine was the substance in the bark that cured malaria. The Dutch planted quinine trees in the East indies and, in time, established an almost complete control of the medicine made from it. When the East indies supply was cut off during the two world wars, two other drugs were developed which proved even more successful than quinine   in curing attacks.

The cure for malaria was found long before science learned the cause. During the last few years of nineteenth century, however, the combined efforts of the scientists of several nations led to the discovery of the connection between swamps, mosquitoes and malaria and this lead to the discovery that mosquitoes were the carriers of malaria. 

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