"How do you treat your malaria patients?" I once enquired of a doctor in
India. A few good stiff doses, he said, when the attack is on; that
generally settles them. If not, they can begin again. To take quinine as
a prophylactic, he considered folly. It might grow into a habit; you
never know. . . .
It is to be hoped that such types are extinct, out there. They are
extinct hereabouts. None but an ignorant person would now traverse
malarious tracts in summer without previous quininiza-tion; or, if
infected, deal with the disease otherwise than by an amply protracted
treatment of cure. Yet it is only quite lately that we have gained our
knowledge of a proper use of the drug; and this accounts for the great
mortality long after its specific effects had been recognized by the
profession. It was given both inefficiently and insufficiently. It was
sold at a prohibitive price. The country people were distrustful;
so-and-so had taken it for three or four days; he had improved, yes; but
the fever was on him once more. Why waste money on such experiments?
I remember accosting a lad, anemic, shivering with the tertian, and
marked by that untimely senility which is the sign-manual of malaria. I
suggested quinine.
"I don't take doctors' stuff," he said. "Even if I wanted to, my father
would not let me.
