SECOND REPORT OF THE ANTI-MALARIAL OPERATIONS
AT MIAN MIR, 1901-1903.

PART I.

SUMMARY OF THE OPERATIONS ANTECEDENT TO THOSE WITH WHICH
THIS REPORT DEALS.

THE operations at Mian Mir and the conditions under which they were carried
     on have been described in previous reports,* but it will not be out of
place to briefly refer to their main features. The operations were intended to
demonstrate the reduction of malaria in a cantonment by measures based upon
recent knowledge of the ætiology of this disease, and as started by the Royal
Society's Commissioners, together with Captain James, I.M.S., were primarily
directed against mosquitoes. There were many reasons at the time why this
method of prevention should have first consideration. Not only did the
reduction of the number of anopheles appear to be the most complete and
satisfactory of all measures, but it was a method of malarial prophylaxis con-
cerning which nothing was as yet known of the ease or difficulty with which
it could be carried out. In the course of their researches in Africa, the
Commissioners had become doubtful of the practical value of operations
against mosquitoes in the moister regions of the world. But in the semi-
desert conditions prevalent in North India, and especially in the Punjab,
they saw what appeared to them to be the proper sphere for such operations.
A cantonment in the North-West of India which offered the best conditions
for the experiment was therefore sought for. But most cantonments which
appeared to be favourable for operations were comparatively healthy, whereas
those at which high admission rates for malarial fever were constantly recorded
were generally found to be unfavourable for operations. The more malarial
stations for troops in North-West India, as shown by the admission rates for
intermittent fever, are:—

* Reports to the Malaria Committee of the Royal Society, by J. W. W. Stephens, M.D.,
S. R. Christophers, M.B., and Captain James,I.M.S., 8th series. October 1902.

   First Report of the Anti-Malarial Operations at Mian Mir, 1901-1903, by Capt. S. P. James, I.M.S.,
Scientific Memoirs by Officers of the Sanitary and Medical Departments of the Government of India (new
series), No. 6.