Medicine: No Cure for Malaria

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> Plasmochin, another synthetic, does not kill asexual forms of the protozoa unless given in toxic doses, is therefore not used for eradicating symptoms. But in very small amounts it kills all sexual forms, is therefore used to supplement quinine or atabrine to prevent convalescents from passing protozoa on to mosquitoes. Plasmochin is safe to give simultaneously with quinine, but some doctors believe it produces toxic effects if given along with atabrine, advise waiting a few days after atabrine before giving it.

> Totaquine, like quinine, is made from cinchona bark, but fewer bark components are discarded. What little comes from South American cinchona trees serves as a wartime substitute for quinine.

The National Research Council's advice on how these antimalarials should be used, especially among fighting men, until the Dutch quinine groves are recaptured from the Japs:

> Use atabrine instead of quinine as a "suppressive."

> If symptoms develop, start with quinine or totaquine, if possible, until fever goes down (about two or three days), follow with atabrine (about five days). After a two-day respite, give plasmochin.

> If no totaquine or quinine is available, or if a patient has benign tertian malaria, treatment can begin with atabrine.

But after any treatment is taken, protozoa may hide out in tissues like the liver or spleen, pop up to plague a "cured" man months or years afterwards; and a patient who succeeds in becoming completely free of the parasites has no true immunity, is liable to reinfection if an infected mosquito bites him. And there are always some mosquitoes with malarial stomach ulcers threatening the human race in the tropics.