Rural Sanitation in the Tropics. By Malcolm Watson. (John Murray.
12s. net.)—An account of sanitation work in, among other places the Malay Archipelago, Sumatra, the Philippine Islands, and Panama, dealing principally with the control of malaria by the destruction of the mosquito. The major part of the book is devoted to a detailed descrip- tion of sanitary organization in Panama, "the Mecca of the modern Sanitarian." Of Colonel Gorges, who was in charge of this great work, Mr. Watson tells us "Although he went to construct a canal, he has also conducted a School of Applied Sanitation whose lesson will benefit the world—I say with confidence—for all time." Here Mr. Watson's enthusiasm has led him into a statement which is' misleading. infinitely important as was the work of Colonel—now Surgeon-General—Gorges as chief Sanitary Officer at Panama, it was not he, but Colonel Goethals, the Chief Engineer, who "went to construct a canal "—a fact stated by Mr. Watson at the beginning of his book. Summing up his observations, Mr. Watson says:— " Everywhere throughout the tropics great sanitary activity and scientific investigation of disease have followed Ross's epoch-making discovery of the role played by the mosquito in the propagation of malaria. From India, from the Philippines, and from other countries, a series of invaluable reports are being issued, which will before long go far to make the tropics, if not a permanent home for the white races, at least a part &the world in which the white man may live with little more danger to health than in his own country."
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