MALARIA
315
By very general consent the word malaria is understood to mean an actual poisonous substance, existing as a separate entity, and giving rise to the definite unhealthy condition of body known by a variety of names, such as ague, intermittent (and remittent) fever, marsh fever, jungle fever, "fever of the country," and fever and ague.
The existence of a specific malarious poison is said to be a pure hypothesis, and a respectable minority dispense with this hypothesis of an actual poisonous agent. The oldest and most prevalent hypothesis of malaria is that it is a specific poison generated in the soil.
Attempts have been made, without success, to separate a malarious poison from the gases generated by swamps, or from the air of malarious localities.
Another hypothesis is that malaria is "telluric intoxication" generated by the vegetable power of the soil when that power is not duly exhausted by plant growth. Of late years, a study has been made of malaria from mosquito bite, which is said to be proved bacteriologically. It does not seem to go further than to connect the mosquito as an agent in the dissemination of malaria, as rats and the rat flea are said to be of plague, and does not trace the mosquito poison to any origin.
In my memo of 10th Feby. '09 I stated that I believed I had found the key to malarial poisoning, in the rocks and soil in which are to be found traces of the platinum metals, by the oxidation of osmium.
I find in an authority, "One of the most salient pathological facts is the occurrence of black pigment in the blood, and deposits of it in the spleen, liver and other parts". This may be the metal osmium, which is black, changed from the tetroxide by nature's cunning laboratory, and thus probably rendered inert as an active poison.
In the Malay Peninsula, malarial fevers make their appearance in places where the forest has been recently felled, or where the surface of the earth has been disturbed. It is noticed that labourers employed in deep mines worked by shafts suffer less from fever than do those who are engaged stripping off alluvial deposits. The hill fever of Mysore occurs among bare rocks and stones of brown earth, although the shade temperature may be 20 or 30 degrees, the surface of the rocks may reach up to 220 degrees in the sun. In this, as well as in many other parts of India, the rocks are credited by natives with giving off poisonous exhalations which cause malarious fevers. The same belief exists in China and South America. The same conditions are found in Hongkong and neighbourhood as in Mysore. This last is a gold mining country, revived by the investigations of Capt. McTaggart I.S.C. into the old mining "pot holes," left by early Indian miners, and it has much malaria.
Hongkong has also its old native mining 'pot holes', and much malaria. "DANA" says, - The minerals most common in gold regions, are platinum, iridosmine, (iridium with osmium) with ores of copper iron &c. This is true of Hongkong, and most likely to be so of Mysore. Some of the Hongkong rocks show a white crystalline deposit. It appears to be an oxide of osmium. It is slowly dissolved from the rocks by exposure, and is then soluble in water. In this way it can permeate land and water, and be spread over to form miasmatic pools, lakes, streams and marshes, which throw off poisonous vapors by action of the hot sun, besides forming what is called "bad water", so much dreaded by natives.
J. GRANT SMITH
Hongkong, 1st March 1909.