§ 42. Mr. MARRIOTTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether patients suffering from malarial fever are being sent for treatment to the military hospitals in Oxford; if so, whether Oxford has been specially selected for the treatment of patients suffering from this disease; and will he state the grounds upon which this selection has been made?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONThe answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's question is in the affirmative. With regard to the remaining parts of the question, a hospital in Oxford is one of a number of hospitals in the United Kingdom in which cases of malaria are being treated by specially qualified medical officers. The hospitals referred to were selected as convenient centres on the advice of loading malaria experts.
§ Mr. MARRIOTTIs the hon. Gentleman aware that this disease is communicable to the human by mosquitoes and that these mosquitoes are indigenous to the Thames Valley; and when these hospitals-were erected was the advice of experts taken on the subject?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONI cannot answer that question, which is rather technical, but from my general knowledge that is true. I would point out to my hon. Friend that those hospitals were erected on the advice of the greatest experts in the world.
§ Admiral of the Fleet Sir HEDWORTH MEUXArising out of that answer, is the hon. Gentleman aware that the malaria mosquito, the anophelina, is rarely met with in England?