( 60 )
Native soldiers, as among European, the practice of trying to carry on their
duties as long as possible without reporting sick is very common, and this
practice, of course, increases very much the liability that pernicious
symptoms will develop. (2) Quinine prophylaxis is very carefully and
thoroughly carried out among prisoners, and although it does not
always prevent infection it lessens the severity of the attack. If these
factors were not in operation we should expect the fatality of malarial
fevers to be much higher among prisoners than among Native troops
because among the former class there are large numbers of old and
infirm men and women in whom an attack of malaria is a much more
serious matter than in the younger and more robust European or Native
soldier.
As regards the fatality of the disease among other classes of people in
India we can add that among 3,402 cases which occurred among the wives of
European soldiers, and were treated in hospital during the ten-year period
ending with 1907, there were 37 deaths, a case mortality of about 1 per cent.,
and that among 5,128 cases occurring in the children of European soldiers
during the same period there were 86 deaths, a case mortality of 1.68 per
cent.
There are no Indian statistics which can be relied upon for calculating the
fatality of malarial fevers in patients who are untreated, but anyone who has
to study malaria in Indian villages cannot fail to observe that at any rate a
very large number of infants and young children pass through many attacks
of malarial fever without, apparently, being greatly affected by the disease,
and that such children gain an immunity to malaria which is of service to
them throughout their lives.
The statistics dealt with above include, of course, all forms of malarial
fever, but it is important to remember that serious symptoms and death
occur, as a rule, only in cases of infection with the Malignant Tertian
parasites. If the statistics of the ordinary intermittent fevers which are
produced usually by the Benign Tertian and Quartan parasites were
considered alone we should find that among European soldiers treated in
hospitals in India not more than 1 patient in every 850 dies, and among
Native soldiers not more than 1 in every 520. It is fortunate therefore