Malaria and dysentery may still occur, occasionally and locally, in the old-fashioned way. Small-pox and cholera have disappeared entirely ankylostomiasis, though widespread, is only locally important as a disease beri-beri has become rare among adults, and although plague has a foothold in certain mountainous parts of Java, it does not occur very frequently. In Java, for example, and in certain parts of Sumatra, tropical disease as we usually understand it, though still playing a certain rĂ´le, is no longer all-important. Gradually, however, with the introduction of Western methods of prevention, these epidemic diseases have lost most of their importance in the better developed tropical communities. We were formerly so impressed by the often dramatic outbreaks of smallpox, cholera, malaria, beri-beri, plague, etc., that these were considered to be not only the characteristic feature but practically the only manifestation of tropical pathology. In our own experience in the East, and the experience of others elsewhere in the tropics, views of the past on the relative importance of different diseases have proved entirely incorrect. Rumors or vague impressions are of no use, especially in studying cancer. It is not easy to collect reliable information about the incidence of disease in tropical countries, where statistical reports, methods of registration of deaths and births, and a medical organization on the scale to which we are accustomed in Western countries are lacking. Nearly the whole population belongs to the Malay race, but the presence of a few million Chinese makes it possible to compare the pathology of these two Eastern races. The Netherlands East Indies, which forms the largest part of the Malay Archipelago, has above 60,000,000 inhabitants 40,000,000 live in Java, one of the most densely populated parts of the world, and the others are spread out over Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes New Guinea, and thousands of smaller islands.
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