January 5, 1901.]
unknown morbific germs, is the veriest twaddle; and the sooner "Visitor" unpacks his mind of such juggling rubbish the better. The dif- ference of temperature between the air inside the net and that outside is due to either one or both of two causes: first, because the space is covered in, and secondly, because it contains iving and breathing organisms
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Visitor" confuses both air and miasma with mist. Air is a certain mechanical mixture of gases; a mist or fog differs from a cloud mainly in its being aground instead of afloat; while miasma is any infectious emanation from decay. ing matter, borne in the air, but not necessarily visible to the naked
eye.
Visitor's" last letter is a hopeless tangle. A cow in a crockery-shop would not make a worse muddle than oftentimes your slapdash, matter-of-fact, common-sense individual when let loose to explain a natural phenomenon.
Mist-belts which seem to bother your correspondent so greatly are easily explained. They regularly occur throughout the tropics, mostly during the rainy season, wherever there are mountains, and are by no means confined to known unhealthy districts. They are also scen in temperate regions; off the south-west of Ireland, and off the west of Scotland, at less regular periods, they are also a well-known meteorological occurrence.
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CHINA ÓVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
was less the cause of death than the poison contained in the bottle, which, so long as it remained there, was as harmless as the malarial mosquito outside the curtain ?
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The wonderful Dary (?) lamp which regu. lates dangerous and explosive gases" and has no guarantee that its functions end there," is even more powerful than the Bobby's Bull's Eye," which everyone knows sees ronnd corners and must be identical with that made famous by
ALADDIN.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE “DAILY PRESS.” Hongkong, 2nd January, 1901. SIR,-" Visitor
He has my sympathies. received a well-deserved castigation for his violence of language, his want of logic, and his ignorance of his subject, but there was a good deal in what he tried to say. His irritation at the pretension of the ordinary medical practi- tioner to pose as a scientific man was natural. I know not on what part of their education doctors base their claim, but I have yet to learn that they observe more accurately or reason more correctly than other professional men.
Now, sir, to come to the arguntentum ad homi- nem introduced by "Resident." Why are we to feel crushed, as 1 presume "Resident" intends us to feel, by having Drs. Young &:d Thomson quoted as authorities? How have theso two gentlemen won their spurs? Dr. Young is a stranger to us, but Dr. Thomson is an old resident, and I do not know that he has distin- guished himself in any way except as a curer of diseases!
My paragraph ending with "hence their re- sulting freedom from malaria in no way im plies that mosquitoes are the sole cause of the disease. This is but one of the many instances of the bull-at-a-gate method of argument adopted by your correspondent. The three men were fever-free at the outset of the experiment. For
And what is this "splendidly thorough work" a considerable length of time they lived and
these two gentlemen are doing? Dr. Young, I slept in a notoriously fever-ridden place, breath-believe, is employed in cutting down brushwood, ing, day and night, such air, fever-laden or not. as was there. They left the place unscathed. Consequently, it is a perfectly fair inference, as far as our knowledge at present goes, that their immunity from malaria was due to the protection afforded by the hut; ie., to the strictly logical fact that they were not innocu- lated by an infected female anopheles, which, it is known, abound in the neighbourhood.
Another specimen of "Visitor's confusion worse confounded, and I have done. I did not object to his "use of millions' in connection with mosquitoes." What I did object to was a specific use of that word: and a reference to his first letter, in situ, together with a minute's arithmetical calculation, will show that he is woefully addicted to exaggeration, a, on the lowest calculation, each of the young men re- ferred to must have been bitten each day throughout the period named by two thousand mosquitoes!
Apologising for my lengthy trespass on your space,-I am, sir, yours, etc.,
a
RÉSIDENT.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRE88,
Visitor
Hongkong, 30th December. SIE-It might have been expected that such "practically scientific" youth as must have been would have tried the well-known dodge of tying a toy balloon over an open gas- jet and seen it-the balloon, not the gas-jet (lis well to be exact in science)-cling to the ceil- ing or float gaily amongst the chandeliers. He would thus have learned that coal gas does not descend, but like his "miasma is apparently lighter than air as it ascends," he was evidently more careful of oxpending the paternal gas than he is of distributing his own!"
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"Visitor's" description of billions and trillions of mosquitoes may be perfectly true. I have heard they stopped a carriage and pair in Mani- toba and devoured the lot, axles and all; but he forgets that the mosquitoes must be of a definite species and infected before they can
Both convey. malaria to man.
Visitor" and "Vox" jumble up all sorts of mosquitoes and all varieties of fever in a sort of medicinal haggis. “ Visitor" thinks Resident" contradicts himself by saying “mosquitoes are the mere agent of transmission, nothing more," because he had previously stated that fonding off mos- quitoes in the Campagna experiment was the cause of its success. Suppose a bot tle of prus acid is lying on “Visi- tor's" desk and that on finding his blun- ders exposed he pours the contents down his throat. Though the verdict would be suicide, will he still maintain that his own hand
(work that it does not require a “scientific” man to do) He thinks a clearance of a few hundred feet will free a house from malaria. Considering that the highest authorities say a mosquito will fly two or three miles to feed, there is not much use in that. No, sir, let Dr. Young "exhibit" drainage and mosquito-curtains.
And now for Dr. Thomson. Is the "splen. didly thorough work" he is doing showing that anopheles exist in the colony? Defend us from our friends! That was proved before either he or Dr. Young studied the question in Hong- kong. Discovering parasites in the blood of children living in a malarial district? Queen Anne is dead, sir. Dr. Thomson would be do- ing just as useful and original work if he car. ried out experiments to prove the circulation of the blood. It is not his fault that he has to waste his time over this rubbish. Ho has to do as he is told. But ne sutor ultra crepidam is a good old proverb and our local medicos had much better stick to the work they have been trained to do. Let them try and treat malaria on the lines laid down by their "scientific German and Italian brethren. They will do much more good than by grass-cutting and mosquito hunting.—I enclose my card and bog to remain, yours, etc.,
ANTI-LOGROLLER.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESS.
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2nd January, 1901. SIRAs a householder and a family man, who takes in your valuable paper whenever it is brought to him, I wish to point out something in connection with it which annoys me very much. I refer to the correspondence about mosquitoes. I quite agree with the remarks of An Indignant Mosquito" in a lotter sent to one of your evening contemporaries.
Allow, me, sir, to point out a few of the inconveniences I have been subjected to as a Peak resident through the recent operations at Magazine Gap. For the last ten years my wife and I have not seen a mosquito in our bedroom. We now have to hire a man to play the piano before we can get to sleep. Our eldest boy formerly had six mosquito bites regularly every year on each leg. He now has 63 on one leg and the other is growingings. Our youngest child is anæmic and the doctor gave us some medicine to make blood. The mosquitoes have reduced the child to a shadow and are now attacking the bottle. Our dog
Snatchit was always free from bit s. He now lies all day on his back, so that he can scratch himself with all four legs at once We never see the sun now at our house till 12 o'clock, as from daylight till that hour
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there is always a cloud of mosquitoes fly:'ng up to our house from Magazine Gap. I hope, sir, that the relation of these few little instances of the result of these scientific operations will convince the authorities that they have so stirred up "the malarial mosquito" that no one knows how long his blood will be his own.
The colony, sir, had got used to mosquitoes; we liked them! They were a luxury! Now they are a pest. I used to point out a mosquito to children as a rare and curious insect, now I point out my children to the mosquitoes and implore them not to take a full meal, because there are much better children next door. The doctors
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may have stopped them breeding in the Sani- tarium nullahs; but they have started them breeding in my washhand-basin. I ask you, sir, if it is not better that the mosquito should breed undisturbed in his native morassos than establish stud-farms. in our bedrooms, in our dining rooms and, perhaps, in our very in- teriors themselves? I am, sir, yours afflictedly,
IRRITATED.
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE REBELS IN KWANGTUNG.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS,'
Hongkong, 2nd January. SIR,-In your issue of the 31st ult. your correspondent writes from Canton to the effect that the Acting Viceroy Tak Sow has seut despatches to the Consuls, saying that he has sent emissaries to find out and arrest any person or persons suspected of having had anything to do with the recent re- bellion in Kwangtung and that in case any native Christians be arrested under suspicion or otherwise of having anything to do with the rebels, and brought to trial, the missionaries must not interfere. The Consuls should treat theso despatches with the contempt they deserve and return them with the usual formalities.
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You know what a favourable reply to such a request means. The Christian converts will be completely at the mercy of the officials and their underlings and will be persecuted and. Who can say hounded out of the country. that there will not be another "Reign of Terror similar, perhaps, to that experienced by the un- fortunates in the North ?
The innocent will be arrested, imprisoned and tortured to a lingering death, as is the fate of the convert Yeung, who unfortunately is still a prisoner in Canton.
There is no justice in China, and “ Justice”. will be blind when instruments of torture are employed by fiendish officials to extract confes-
sions!
Again, the officials will become possessed of a mighty lever for oppression and will be encour- aged to intimidate and blackmail the families or relatives of those Chinese residing in foreign countries, as well as any individual they think werth "skinning."
The majority of the Christian converts in China have received an enlightened education, so it stands to reason that they sympathise with reform and the loaders of reform. In fact it is their duty to preach reform to their ignorant countrymen. What does Christianity teach? Alas! reformers and their sympathisers are arch rebels in the eyes of the officials.
Is it right then that the officials should be. permitted to "mark" and condemn enlightened and progressivo Christian converts and brand them as rebels in order to get rid of them ? Certainly not, and I for one hope the repre- sontatives of the Christian Powers will inter- vene before it is too late.-Yours, etc.,
JUSTICE.
Recently a bicycle corps was organised in the Toyama Gakko, a military school where instruction in tactics, shooting, gymnastics, and other branches of military study are given, and the experiments made as to the usefulnem of bicycles for carrying orders and such like service have shown the value of the machine. It is proposed to organise one bicycle corps in each Army Division, states the Kobe Chronicle. Ou the ground of convenienes and economy Japanese Government has decided facture the bicycles at home, and machin that purpose is now being set up in the Military Arsenal.