[Restricted. To be shown to authorized personnel only!]

[The United States Navy presents]

[Medicine In Action]

[Release No. 1]

[Pacific Enemy Number Two Malaria]

We've set our course across the vast and trackless Pacific, headed west-southwest.

Soldiers, sailors, marines.

We're setting out to break open the road to Tokyo.

Oh, this island was a bomb blasted milestone on that road.

Now this might be any liberated Pacific island with a gentle wash of waves along the shore.

The villages and the people are peaceful now.

Pacific Enemy Number One, the Jap, has been blasted out.

But, still hiding here is Pacific Enemey Number Two.

The anophelene mosquito whose tiny bite can mean malaria.

Within the blood stream of many natives circulate the blood destroying parasite--

the malaria parasite injected by the mosquito.

These microscopic parasites multiply by the billions in geometric progression.

The swollen spleens of native children are a clinical indication that the youngsters are the main reservoir of active malaria parasites.

They don't look very sick, but many an infant has died.

And those natives who survive are often badly run down by prolonged struggle with malaria.

During daily sick call, the medical officer has good reason to expect a malaria casualty or two,

for the anophelene mosquito transmits malaria from the sick natives to our healthy troops.

When 30, 40, or 50 men out of a 100 are knocked flat on their backs by malaria the military situtation is far worse than S.N.A.F.U.

When our officers and men feel like this, they are in no shape to fight the Jap.

Day-by-day more men are knocked out of action by mosquitoes than by Japs.

Our medical and line officers recognize malaria as a major military medical problem.

Their combined experience all over the world helps them plan global control measures like military campaigns.

Pacific Enemey Number Two must not slow down our attack on Enemy Number One.

We know that most of this area is not malarious.

But here, from the Solomon's up through the islands of quinine and rubber, tin and tea, oil and cotton,

all through the curving East Indies to the wide coast of Asia and all this vast area, malaria is endemic in the native population.

In real life, the islands on the map look like this.

In territory like this the malaria mosquito breeds.

In territory like this we do much of our fighting.

It's hard to fight two enemies, Jap and mosquito at one time.

But any malaria casualty who sweats it out on the long haul back from the front line can tell you

the silent sickness and the malaria mosquito are here as surely as the Jap.

In the Pacific, military discipline and malaria discipline should be as powerful a partnership as rifle and bullet.

During active combat operations, each man from buck private to three-star officers must follow a few simple, sensible, personal precautions.

Sleeves down.

Shirt buttoned.

Repellent smeared on.

And smeared on often enough to keep the mosquitoes away.

This equipment is as important as bullets, especially between sundown and sunup, the danger hours.

Mosquito netting.

And a quick spurt of insect spray.

These individual personal jobs have kept many a man healthy in the most malarious jungle, but there is a careless man.

He is the one sure to be bitten.

In spite of our scientific protective defenses, some mosquitoes will infiltrate to attack some of our men.

A man bitten by an infected mosquito can often keep on his feet if he has been taking enough Atabrine pills regularly.

Atabrine, or other drugs, can suppress or delay an attack of acute malaria. [Sign: Have you taken your Atabrine today?]

Suppressive anti-malaria treatment is particulary valuable before jungle fighting starts.

Check off by roster as each man swallows the drug is the best insurance that every man will be in there slugging when the going gets tough.

But the Pacific war is not always a jungle war.

On many islands advance bases are springing up.

And at each base is a carefully trained malaria control team.

This general headquarters of malarial control plans the war again Pacific Enemy Number Two in a coordinated triple attack. [Sign on door: Headquarters Malaria Control SoPac.]

Medical, engineering, and entomological.

Once a long range program of malaria control starts, central headquarters sends out scientific advanced scouts: entomologists.

These specialists take a careful census of the mosquito population.

The more anophelenes they find breeding in the quiet waters, the more danger of malaria.

The C.B.'s, who often carry the heavier equipment of malaria control, go into action.

They use dynamite to blast open waterways.

Drag lines to draw off stagnant pools of water into open drainage ditches.

Working parties cut down underbrush.

Certain breeding pools cannot be drained, so our control crews attack mosquito wrigglers with oil spray.

Sometimes behind the active fighting front,

our scientific combat teams help their buddies in the frontline by attacking enemy number two in the rearline.

Even while there is still danger from snipers and enemy bombers.

Sluice gates dam up enough water to give malaria control engineers a method of periodically flushing out mosquito-breeding streams.

Streams whose banks have been cleared of insect hiding places.

Each individual outfit must make sure screens go up and stay in good repair.

The danger hiding in the villages has not been forgotten.

Control men know that blood-hungry mosquitoes and malaria-sick natives living side-by-side make a dangerous combination.

Insect sprays in native homes catch and kill adult mosquitoes in their dark, cool daytime hiding places.

In the meantime, the medical officer has gone ahead passing out Atabrine pills to the native population.

This kind of malaria control requires diplomacy, pigeon-English explanations...

But cooperation comes with understanding or a little old-fashioned urging.

A time-tested humble persuader, candy, gets the Atabrine down.

If enough drug goes down regulary, enough parasites will be killed to make the native population less dangerous to us.

However, the drug doesn't make it safe to move into the villages where both natives and mosquitoes live.

An unprotected fellow like this is exposing himself to double trouble when he goes looking for a little primitive rug-cutting, foot-stomping, or some interesting tropical nightlife.

He'll discover his error in a sick bay where he'll have plenty of time to think things over.

Sometimes, unintentionally, our own men help the insect enemies.

[Poster on wall: Man-Made Malaraia. 6 mosquitoes in 10 breed in water in unecessary ruts, abandoned roads, bocked ditches, fox and shell holes]

Rain. Rain and mosquitoes, anophelene mosquitoes, go hand-in-hand.

Often, men make the holes and nature fills them.

It doesn't take much water to make a breeding place.

Here is the thoughtless sabotage of men against their own well-being.

Road ruts are made and then deserted, making an undisturbed pleasant nursery for the mosquitoes.

Soft-surfaced rutted roads, like this, must be destroyed.

Every rut in every road made by some thoughtless individual means somebody has to sweat to fill in the potential breeding hole.

Every rut in every unused road must be wiped out!

Barbed wire helps convince the careless guys who can't resist cutting new trails.

[Sign along road: Use authorized roads only]

We still fight our way forward on the road to Tokyo and almost every place we find Japs we find malaria.

To the weapons of combat must be added the weapons of preventive medicine.

Hard-won knowledge of how to go into the jungle and come out healthy.

We know how to treat malaria.

If every one of us understands the danger, if each man does his personal or professional bit in controlling malaria,

we can prevent this ancient tropical scourge.

We know our men can come marching back from combat without the sickness in their blood.

Pacific Enemy Number Two can be beaten!

[Sign: Welcome home you rugged bastards]

This is medicine in action!

[The End. MN 3726a. 1944]