Towards the end of last year, I asked Dr. Malcolm Watson to contribute an article to my book on the Prevention of Malaria regarding his work in the Federated Malay States. Unfortunately, the article which he sent to me, though interesting from beginning to end, was too long to be inserted with the contributions furnished by nineteen other workers in various parts of the world: and I therefore determined to try to publish his paper as a separate book. We are greatly indebted to Sir Frank Swettenham, G.C.M.G., the distinguished organiser of Federal Administration in the Protected Malay States, for the assistance which he gave us in this respect. Mr. H. J. Read, C.M.G., of the Colonial Office, was kind enough to approach him on my behalf regarding the matter; and the result was that the various companies mentioned on a previous page generously provided the necessary funds. Not only Dr. Watson and myself owe our thanks to Sir Frank Swettenham and to these companies for the help given to us, but I think that the governments and peoples of many malarious countries will be not less grateful.
The time is one of change and advancement in our ideas of colonial development. We are passing away from the older period of incessant wars and of great military or civil dictatorships into one of more minute and scientific administration in which the question always held before us is: What can best be done for increasing the prosperity of the people? Sanitation is almost the first word in the answer. Prosperity is impossible in the face of widespread disease, and perhaps the very first effort which must be made in new countries is to render them reasonably safe, not only from human enemies, but from those small or invisible ones which in the end are so much more injurious. As one example of this new theorem I can quote that of Panama, where the Americans began their great work by laborious sanitary preparations. Another example will be found in this book.
The author describes the origin of the Federated Malay States and the great sanitary problem which remained when that Federation was completed. It is a picture of a great work and of a great difficulty beyond it. Political adjustments are not everything, and for additional successes the statesman must be followed by the man of science and the scientific administrator. Possessed of great natural riches, of an intelligent population, and of neighbouring sources of intelligent labour, the States appeared from the first to have been designed for wealth and success. Within them, however, there lived a relentless enemy—a disease which hampers all human work, especially that of the pioneer and the planter, to a degree which will scarcely be believed in this country; and the task before the Government was to subdue this enemy if possible. I have said elsewhere that the Panama Canal is being dug with a microscope, and I believe that the same instrument will double the wealth of the Federated Malay States.
Technically, Dr. Watson’s book is of the utmost value to all workers against malaria. He has laboured at his campaign for eight years; he has studied the disease from every point of view, and its prevention by every method. He has attacked it in towns, in villages, and in plantations; and has thrown into the work a degree of energy and enthusiasm which has not been exceeded in any anti-malaria campaign which has been carried out since we learned the manner in which it is carried from man to man. This book contains the details of his methods and the lessons which he has to teach. I may, perhaps, be allowed the privilege of considering it to be a part of my own work mentioned above.
More than ten years have now elapsed since we learned how the disease is carried. This has been a period of probation, during which many methods of prevention have been tentatively investigated. We have had great examples of success by various methods in the Panama Canal Zone, in Italy, in Ismailia, and in many other places; but I trust that this book, which describes the no less brilliant campaign of the Federated Malay States, will furnish the governments, the health departments, and the planters of every malarious country with detailed information which they can always use for similar work; and we may now hope that progress will become still more rapid and complete in the future.
University of Liverpool,
1st December 1910.