Malaria memories

are stirred

The article dealing with malaria in the September PIM will bring back memories to those of us who lived pre-war in New Guinea and the Solomons, and perhaps some degree of wonderment among those who live in non-malarial islands of the Pacific and elsewhere.

My experience of the scourge relates mainly to the 1920 s and ’3os in the Morobe district of mainland New Guinea, and in particular when people from Australia flocked in to try their luck on the Edie Creek gold fields and adjacent areas.

In general they as dear skins became infected as soon as they arrived by ship at Salamaua and their first dose of malaria was not helped by their subsequent rough living, grog, poor food and ignorance of precautions and treatment.

Luckily most of the infection was of the benign variety but when the more malignant strains claimed a victim it gener

ally ended in blackwater fever or cerebral malaria and a one way trip to the local cemetery.

In contrast to the many pro phylactic and suppressant drugs now available we had only quinine. On most dining tables stood a tin of Hallams 5 gr. capsules, and it was ritualistic to start the evening meal by swig ging down a capsule. Two of them would make the ears ring and produce slight deafness.

It was a way of life for most people in coastal areas to go down with an attack periodical ly, and the usual treatment was to leave the sufferer alone in a darkened room with a jug of lemon drink and a bottle of aspirin at the bedside, tiptoe away and leave him or her to literally sweat it out for a couple of days.

If medical attention was avail-

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able it was common for a severe case to be treated by injection of liquid quinine in the buttock, this often resulted in a quinine ulcer and subsequent sloughing.

Late in the 1930 s a German synthetic named “Plasmoquin” came on the scene but was accompanied by a warning that it was to be treated with caution as a dangerous drug. The war brought atebrin and yellow pigmented skins, and later we heard of paludrin but it was reported to be still under test.

The PIM article tells of the campaign, and the large num bers of people employed in anti-anopheles measures. At Salamaua, adjacent to a man grove swamp teeming with mosquitoes, the team consisted of four natives who moved

around putting a cup of kerosene in water tanks, over turning abandoned canoes, and attempting the hopeless task of emptying the water from thousands of empty bully beef tins and half coconuts. Almost nightly rains kept them full of water.

A dose of malaria usually was followed by a feeling of well being; our only tonic was called “Easton’s Syrup,” a strychnine based potion.

There were always argu ments as to how long the wog remained dormant in the sys tem; men who served in the Australian Light Horse in Pales tine in World War I claimed to have recurrent attacks years later; in my experience I had a few mild attacks after leaving New Guinea after the war, usually brought on by taking a cold shower.

Bert E. Weston

Wollstonecraft, NSW Australia.

Three who stayed, malaria or not. This picture taken in the mid-60s shows the last three expatriates to live in the goldfields settlement of Edie Creek. From left they are George Sutherland (known as “Scotty”) who arrived there in 1926, and Stella and Ned Partridge (1933). The pre-war gold rush population was more than 350.