“He Who Opened the Pacific Door!”

By A. J. Vogan, F.R.G.S.

To old battlers like the writer, who can look back over more than half a century of Pacific memories, nothing perhaps stands out so vividly as the change that has become apparent re garding our views of the malarial curse.

It is not too much to say that had our therapeutic knowledge remained at the level it was in my youth, the “Summer Isles of Eden” of our busy British col onies, mandates, and States would to day have remained “in statu quo.”

The archaeologist and naturalist, wan dering through the lesser-known of the thousands of islets of the Pacific, soon recognises the fact that a few hundred years ago, a large, important, and, more or less, civilised population of Asiatics had their being where now nothing but sparsely-peopled jungles obtain.

Stone foundations, enormous earth works, curious carvings, hieroglyphics, Ogmaic and other inscriptions, pottery of artistic merit, wonderful cuttings for canoes to pass through coral-reefs, buildings that show engineering skill and the finished artisanship that tells of an ancient civilisation, meet the eye again and again; and awaken in the mind a kind of requiem of sober thoughts anent the great people who once trod these wilds —Gone! Into the

Ewigkeit!

And further inquiry seems to show that it was the mosquito that shut down the door of the Pacific, upon a promis ing influx of Asian immigrants. Just as Yucatan, and other portions of the world’s surface, became depopulated be neath the dread wings of that pernicious pest —that angel of death that brooded over the fairest portions of the world until “he who was duly appointed” ar rived upon the scene!

To the student of historical happen ings, nothing, I suppose, is so forcibly patent as the fact that at certain phases of the world’s happenings, “when the world is ripe and ready for his ad vent” (as the great writer put it) the “Man of Destiny” appears to carry out his job.

Such an one was that quiet, unassum ing lover of Science for Her own sweet sake: the shy and almost timid young Dr. Ronald Ross, whom the writer re members as slightly older than himself, working away amidst the dread possi bilities of the dangerous, fever-stricken swamps round Rome. The son of a dis tinguished Indian Army officer, he studied in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he was the friend of a young Mr.

Appleton, an intimate of our family.

In 1899, Ross, already acknowledged as the authority upon his subject, left the Indian Medical Service and founded the Liverpool School of Tropical Medi cine—becoming ultimately its professor.

His enthusiasm was so great that he was led to demand what various gov ernment bodies considered was too much at their hands. He was the first who showed that malaria was a preventive disease; and he developed a pugnacity which did not spare his official oppon ents who, with that nonchalance that characterises the typical civil-servant, did not understand why their ease and circumlocution-methods should be inter fered with by this unsociable medico, who never drank cocktails at their clubs or played golf like other “good-fellows."

But he it was, Sir Ronald Ross, who did more for the Pacific than perhaps

all the other authorities and civil-ser vants combined. Owing to his discov eries, we can walk and work where a white-man could not live before. By his sacrifice of the world’s pleasures and luxuries he opened up new lands for old jungles, “where brooding fever hung.”

The Pacific owes him a debt of grati tude ; and of remembrance, far greater than it can ever pay.

Even if the thoughtless youths in flash “shorts,” and the tempting lounges under the “pub.” verandah, DO make it easy for Her Ladyship the Malarial Mos quito to carry on her deadly work; and if it still remains apparently impossible to get municipal and other responsible authorities to see that breeding places for the larvae do not obtain, we still can fall back upon the second lines of de fence: the No. 295 in the greenish brown bottle.

Ross did his “Veni, Vidi, Vici” turn; and passed on —leaving us the half opened door! Will our civilisation fol low that of the first Pacific immigrants?

Or will we take advantage of the chance he gave us?

Anyway, a memorial of Sir Ronald, here and there, would be a useful re minder to us not to let the authorities get too lax, or the youngsters too for getful of what malarial fever can do if we forget ordinary, sane precautions against it!