The Role of Chemistry in Combating Tropical Diseases*

Abstract

TO a great Colonial Power such as Britain, the control of the insect-borne diseases, malaria and trypanosomiasis, the vectors of which are respectively the Anopheles mosquito and the tsetse fly, is of paramount importance. Malaria, which claims anything from 300 to 800 million victims a year, with an annual death roll of 3 to 4 million, is the most prevalent of all human infectious diseases and the worst scourge with which we have to contend throughout all our tropical and sub-tropical Colonies. It is not only responsible directly for enormous damage to health but it so lowers vitality by its destruction of blood cells that other infections are enabled to create perhaps even greater destruction than the malaria itself.