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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
it useless for their guns. Since they have, vacated the camp, the Chinese have been going there secretly by night and digging the am- munition up.
The Chin Pao publishes a telegram stating that acting under the advice of the high officials in the Court, Tang Fahsien has been given an Imperial Commission to visit Mongolia, Thibet, Kansa, etc., to enlist soldiers and raise an Imperial guard. The real object to get him | and his obstructing forces out of the way, and clear the road for the Imperial return.
The Provisional Government have succeeded in arresting a number of counterfeit cash coiners lately, and have seized a quantity of machinery, | The coiners admitted having thirty-seven laboratories in the village of Ho-chwangtze, where they were caught, and gave the name of a foreign compradore who is associated in the business.
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* [January 5, 1901. faddists who are too narrow-minded to admit the | It is therefore extremely difficult for me to possibility of any other cause than the mosquito? believe that this small percentage can account "Medico" and "Resident" jump on me severely for all the malaria there is in the world, more over my reference to the Humphry Davy lamp. especially as I have pointed out that offen What I meant to imply was that inasmuch as where there are most mosquitoes there is vory a piece of wire gauze has the power to regulate little malaria, and where there are no^mos- dangerous and explosive gasses in one instance, buitoes absolutely every individual is suffering there is no guarantee that its functions end from it. there. Resident "* says "the three men in the Campagna breathed the same air inside their specially built hut as they would have done in an unprotected dwelling erected in the same locality. They wero fended off from mosquitoes only, hence their resulting freedom from ma- laria.” This implies that mosquitoos are the “sole cause,” while in the following paragraph he acknowledges that the female anopholes is transmission - nothing the mere agent of more."
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What I should like "Resident" to prove is that the three mon did breathe the same air in- side their mosquito-proof hut, as they would have done in the open
The port closed unexpectedly on the 8th inst., and the river is frozen hard in most of the reaches, while skating has been liberally indulged in on the canal and ponds for the We are many of us in camping out familiar past ten days. Very great inconvenience has with the phenomena of our mosquito-curtains be- been experienced owing to the port closing ing covered with beads of moisture on the out- before half the steamers at the Bar had dis-side, while they remain perfectly dry within. The charged their cargos, and several of the stores here have experienced considerable loss through their Christmas goods having to go back to Shanghai. The community will miss a great of the agreeable accessories of Christmas in consequence, and the supply of many neces- sary lines will be limited.
many
We cannot but feel the greatest satisfaction that whatever other rascals may be abroad one at least got his deserts in the Native City last week. The execution of Tan Wen-huan gavo as much satisfaction to the Chinese as to foreigners, even more so, as they appear to have been even more keenly alive to his rascality than we were, and they are unanimous in the opinion that the military authorities have done an exceedingly good work in 1emoving him. In addition to being a pronounced foreign hater, Tan squeezed every Chinese in foreign employ from whom it was possible to extract a dollar, and he was con- sequently dreaded by the compradores in Tien- tsin.
The Tongku corresnondent of the same paper, writing on the 12th i ards the presenta- tion on the 9th to p
. M. Wise of the U. S. 8. Monoccey and al .F. Strangmann, Assistant Tidesurveyor and Harbour Master of the Imperial Chinese Customs at Tongku, of a large Banner 8 feet long and feet wide, bearing an insciption in Chinese characters wishing them a long and happy life, and had their names in Chinese. The banner was presented to these gentlemen by the people of the Yu-chiaspu, commonly known as the Fish Village, in re- cognition of their services in saving the village from destruction by the Russian soldiers after the temple and several houses had been burnt down.
CORRESPONDENCE.
[We do not hold ourselves responsible for the "opinions expressed by our correspondents.] MOSQUITOES AND MALARIA.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESS.
temperature inside the net is also several degrees higher than outside. The mosquito-curtain is only a piece of gauze and air can pass through it freely, but the fact remains that it doesn't always do so. This seems to shew that the atmosphere inside and outside must be different. Medico" wishes to suffocate me with coal gas, He might have chosen a more suitable example. Coal gas is heavier than the atmosphere and descends, while miasma is apparently lighter as it ascends.
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Ishould recommend "Medico" and "Resident” to dismount from their hobbies, until they can offer more enlightened explanations.
I am but a humble seeker after light, but must enter my protest against the blind leading the blind.Yours, etc.,
VISITOR.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS,'
and
not
Hongkong, 30th December. SIR, Your correspondent " Visitor," in his communication of Saturday last, writes in a-- much more chastened spirit than he did a week earlier. But who is he within our gates that, as a mere bird of passage, daringly assumes the onerous responsibility of asserting that" Hong- kong is suffering from the experiments of nar- row-minded faddists"? Does he judge that wo are incapable of looking after our own affairs, that we are so utterly absorbed in business as to be blind to what is going on openly in our midst? He protests against the blind leading. the blind-why, so do I! What can he, self- confessedly a mere anonymous migrant, here to-day and away to-morrow, know of us our complicated surroundings, that we do i know much better ourselves? By what irre- gular prescriptive right does he, a querulous convalescent stranger among us, set himself up I myself, in common with many of my as an efficient exponent of local public opinion. acquaintances accustomed to camping out, Let him straightway produce his credentials, believe that a mosquito-net is partial protection or, at least, give us convincing evidence of some against malaria, and often use it in feverish sort or other that he has the right to authori districts even where there are no mosquitoes.tatively hector and lecture us on our failings, I invited a discussion on malaria and called damning with faint praise matters and theories attention to various phenomena which puzzled that, as yet, are little more than enbryonic, and myself and others.
nor legally speaking. sub judice. Who, I per- Resident" attempt to offer any explanation tinently ask, are the men he so flippantly styles The mosquito as the sole cause does not
at present.
"Resident" objects to my using “millions" in con- nection with mosquitoes. He can never have seen a really bad district. I can take him to several, where mosquitoes are simply in clouds after sunset-" billions" and "trillions" would not be an exageration.
meet
сабе the
Neither "Medico"
They settle on every piece of bare skin by dozens and one can kill 8 or 10 at a time on the back of one's hand. The ordinary residents, the young men I have referred to, get so accustomed to these pests that they scarcely mind them, and sit about with bare legs and feet in the ordinary free and easy tropical way.
Still thess districts are very healthy and there is practically no fever.
On the other hand, I can take the two wri- ters to districts where there is hardly a mosquito and one can sleep comfortably withont a net, and yet neither European nor native can live there for two months without potting fever. The soil, however, is being turned over, and there is the phenomena of the mist belts, which I have invited an explanation of.
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faddists ?" Drs. Young and Thomson? The military authorities in the one instance and the local Government in the other-to say nothing of the general community-I imagine, have the very fullest confidence in the splendidly thorough work that each of these qualified gen- tlemen has done and is still doing.
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'Visitor's letter is a tiresome series of innuendoes evasions and quibbles. Who is the "pseudo-scientific local man," for whom he has such unconcealed contempt, and who is trying to pose as a leading light on the strength of incomplete information acquired from the work of the true scientist"? Suppos ing, for a moment, that such an inept charlatan existed, how comes it that your correspondent has discovered him? This is the kind of pin. prick which is so senseless.
I said that Drs. Sambon and Low, with Sig- nor Terzi, breathed the same air inside the hut as they would have done in an unprotected dwelling put up in the vicinity. "Visitor," pre- teu ding to see difficulties in the way, asks me to prove this. To me, and I fancy to most of your readers, it is as though I had been serious- The examples of the "mistletoe" and they asked to show that two added to two make "tape worm which “Medico cites are but a four. I will, however, take “Visitor" as serious- further argument against the mosquito as the ly as ho wishes to be takon. Unless the three
We know that a great many of
men concerned took special supplies of air ก submarine our butterflies, beetles &c., have several distinct with thom, as is done in ap-
lives in their cycle. Why should not the soil, boat, I don't see how any sane person ni giving off its gasses also give off unknown
can controvert my assertion. What air did and invisible germs, which we inhale into our they breathe? I asked this question, because lungs? Thence they pass into our blood and the famous illustration of the Humphry Davy these develop into another life in the form lamp, which was the crux of his statement, will of the malarial gorm visible to the microscopo not bear examination. Why does one ordinarily The mosquito takes it from our blood and does hang up a mosquito-curtain? Why is this its work as transmitting agent only.
particular piece of bed-drapery called by the name it bears, if not because it keeps out mosquitoes? It is doltish and childish to fence mysteriously about other unknown functions of the ganze. The beads of moisture outside the curtain, when camping out, are deposited there for exactly the same reason that drops of water drip from the caves, or run down the outside of closed verandah window panes, dering such weather as we have had last few mornings at the Peak-because the outer surface is cooler er one, and plays the part of con than the inner one, densing agent. But to assort, or to imply, that with the moisture, the air gives up certain
sole cause." Hongkong, 23th December. SIE-Both "Medico" and "Rezident pear to wish to construe my letter as au attack on scientific men, and as a protest against the mosquito theory in its entirety. It is quite the reverso. It was meant as an attempt to draw a distinction between the true scientific man who is slowly and carefully working out the subject step by step, and the pseudo-scienti. fic local man (we won't say "maniac," as the term has been so resented) who is trying to pose as a leading light, on the strength of the incomplete information which he has acquired from the scientists' work.
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Medico" would imply that every medical man is a scientist. He might as well Tommy Atkins is a General.
that every say
I have no doubt whatever that the scientific men who are studying malaria are working over a very wide field indeed, and that sooner or later we will be informed that they have been successful. In the meantime, however, is Hong- kong to suffer from the experiments of a few
I am not "doing my little best to" hold back the progress of science and retard "the advance of truth." Quite the reverse! I am only asking for information on a few interesting points, begging that a wider field may be examined for the cause of malaria.
Apparently-so far as we know at present only some 20 per cent of the malarial mos- quitoes are infected with the malarial germ. We also know, that of all mosquitoes the malarial species forms quite a small proportion, so that 2 or 3 per cent. would probably be a high percentage to take for the infected ones.