Anti-Malaria Discovery

A CHEMICAL preparation which, it is claimed, will save troops from malaria-carrying mosquitoes, has been perfected by Dr. Botha de Meillon, entomologist of the South African Insti tute for Medical Research (says Michael Terry in a recent issue of “Sydney Morning Herald”).

When Dr. de Meillon had perfected his preparation, he covered his arm with it and thrust it into a cage in which he had bred a large number of anopheles mosquitoes. Not one mosquito ventured near his hand or arm. Then he thrust his other arm within the cage without protecting it with his preparation. It was at once attacked.

Dr, Meillon visited Yugoslavia and Italy before the war in connection with his work on malaria. Recently he cleared up the mystery of how Transvaal people who had not been near a malaria area for years suddenly went down with the fever. Painstaking investigations estab lished that these unfortunates lived oppo site a garage at which cars from a malaria area halted for petrol. This led to the discovery that infected mos quitoes had travelled some hundreds of miles as “passengers”.

Miss Margaret Bechervaise retired re cently after 26 years’ service with the Anglican Mission in Papua, and now is in Melbourne on final furlough. In the Territory, she was occupied mainly in native educational work, her last post being at Sefoa and she possessed an intimate knowledge of the Papuan natives, their language, and their ways.