ADVENTURE IN SARDINIA

[Music] [Music] [Applause] this is the story of a great experiment a test of strength between modern science and an ancient skill [Music] the lands ravaged by malaria are the black spots of the earth from among these black spots men chose one to be their testing ground a place standing alone cursed by malaria since time immemorial [Music] of proud ancestry a people who after many centuries still fight the lonely battle for existence entirely villages they live as they have always done huddled together against banditry and the fears which always lurk in a peasant land simple threads make the pattern of their living birth and death ancient craftsmanship and the strength that comes from religious faith and common hardship [Music] they tell us that our land is the poorest in all italy i cannot say all i know is sardinia and life there is hard [Music] they tell us that only 70 years ago our land was rich with trees and green forest but when they cut the trees the rains washed our soils into the rivers and the wind blew it away in dust today in sardinia if you want to live you've got to fight when people are poor their children are weak and sick malnutrition tuberculosis dysentery these are what the doctor finds and then of course malaria that breaks a child's will to fight if you had two children one would often be dead before it learned to walk [Music] each year it came the malaria were shivering fever and when we felt it we had to take to our beds thousands of thousands of men too seek to work and the life went out of our land the oranges they rotted on the campidano the wines of dorgali grew untended the fishing boats of cabras lay idle on the beaches on the dam of a flu mendoza that was to bring us water and power no man worked each year a malaria came like the winds from the west and the blossoms on the almonds as if it was sent from god and not the devil they called it the melaria the bad air but it came not from the air nor from the trees but from the silent waters the pleasant mountain pools the green swamps and quiet marshlands [Music] there like death [Music] larvae born each season from eggs larvae harmless as yet later the pupa harmless again then from the pupa a thing smaller than a fly a little thing that for thousands of men women and children would mean disease and death master of an island a mosquito on newfound wings the mosquitoes flew to the homes of men lurking in corners waiting for sunrise or sunset for dawn and dusk was when they sought their food the blood of human beings feeding from the sick carrying the sickness on to the healthy tiny wings that over a whole island cast the shadow of death it was in 1946 that we first arrived in force at calgary sardinia's capital and chief port first thing was to set up offices and general headquarters we called ourselves erlass that's short for an italian mouthful regional organization for the antionophilian campaign in sardinia that was us our chief was dr john logan of the rockefeller foundation which was directing the campaign under him an international force italian american british canadian dutch single aides into the port came equipment and supplies hunra was backing the project to the tune of a million and a quarter pound sterling jeeps trucks and ddt ddt by the ton our experts were kept busy training a small army of local people recruited from all jobs and classes lawyers and school teachers students and farmers their task it was the task of all of us to wipe out every malaria-carrying mosquito in the hall of sardinia [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] then in every town and village they told the people of the coming battle for their island on the one side a killer tiny but in countless numbers on the other science and the people of sardinia and so they moved into battle from caesarea in the north to chulada in the south even into gauley and marduk a sunni and villanova into every city town and lonely village on a fever-ridden island a strange invasion watched by a people philosophical and calm are people taught by fate to hope for much and expect but little [Music] no i don't think many of them believed all this about mosquitoes but they welcomed us just the same we didn't mind what they thought as long as they let us in for in there were the adult mosquitoes sheltering for the winter with ddt we sprayed every house and every room every farm building and every shed millions of them to keep a check each house had a little card pinned inside its front door while on the outside we stenciled a number giving the data the job we did every church every tower and every belfry every bridge every wall and every hut even sprayed the prehistoric ruins empty of life for thousands of years empty except for mosquitoes tall buildings too high for spraying got special treatment with an aerosol machine this pumped in ddt fog which penetrated up into every corner by the end of february 1948 we'd sprayed every building in sardinia and some of them twice every man built structure on this island of one million two hundred thousand people so much for the adult mosquitoes but in the waters nature was still at work creating life to pass on death one female mosquito left alive reproduces her kind a hundredfold eggs into larvae larvae into pupil pupa into mosquitos [Music] in the waters a never-ending cycle [Music] for the fight against the larvae we split the whole island into regions each region into divisions each division intersections each section into districts boundaries were carefully and precisely marked so each worker knew exactly which places were his responsibility and which were his neighbors [Music] the job depended for the most part on local people on the district chiefs each with his team men who knew their country like we know our own backyard [Music] around a convenience center where possible a town or a village the work was planned out on a map each sector represented one man's area one man's responsibility from a local dump each drew his ammunition enough ddt dissolved in oil for a day's work from then on he was on his own now though the larvae live in the water they must breathe air at the surface when sprayed the fine oil emulsion spreads itself automatically carrying with it the deadly ddt each lava site as he was called had to spray every known breeding place in his sector once every week pool stream canal or swamp behind the lava siders came intelligence squads scouts to check that the work had been thoroughly done and to find undiscovered breeding places as reports came in from the field one thing became terribly clear though the total number of larvae was being greatly reduced there were far too many left too many pockets of resistance in unexpected places to cope with the vast areas of swamp we tried planes pumping out aerosol down to the waters underneath but though they flew again and again the aerosol failed to penetrate the thickest reeds and the mountains had brought their own kind of trouble deep in thick shrub overgrown and choked with brambles so many breeding places were tough to reach often impossible for the lava ciders it was no picnic all regional headquarters marshland and mountain began to pass on the same story tough going and ever increasing difficulties then it came home to us the job was even bigger than we'd bargained for we had to make a vital decision in order to succeed every drop of water on the island must be drained or cleared every drop of water in all the thousands of square miles of sardinia [Music] july 48 we applied to the italian government for a further million and three-quarter pounds sterling from its martial aid funds more money more equipment more men here we brought them in by the hundred until by september 48 earliest was indeed an army 32 000 [Music] men over ten thousand square miles the battle was joined digging ditching burning drying out the stagnant marshlands the swamplands of tortoli siniskola and porto torres up in the mountains of the limbarda and the solstice packing the tangle from the pools and streams rooting out the boulders freeing the waters to wash away the larvae behind this army came the scouts singly and in groups raiding across country patiently checking all possible breeding places squads searching scouring the hills systematically seeking out every tiny pool every hoof print and puddle along the endless miles of lonely coast on the slopes of the high general into every hole and corner for them nowhere was too far nowhere too difficult [Music] one day a scout come all right so he has to come he checks all the lava siding in our district and of course he don't come when we are there oh no he makes a dipper here he makes a dip there to see what he can find and in one pool what he finds is plenty then he brings what he find to our village headquarters and it is then that i say to myself uh-huh somebody's gonna get into plenty of trouble he speaks with the chief and then the chief he speaks with uh what do you think where for me and i say what could i say i say santira paradiso sofares and now after three years work where do we stand malaria's been wiped out all right but we were trying to do something else as well to eliminate from a large area a kind of mosquito that had been breeding there for centuries have we succeeded well science is not easily satisfied so just let's say that success is in sight and we've learned things which will help in the battle against malaria all over the world this is our village one warm spring day in 1950 down to the square comes angelo our town crier he smiles as he always smiles when he knows something that we do not know but this time there is a special reason for his smile this time he tells us that for an entire year there have been no fresh cases of malaria in all our province that day we dance for all dances not just for my sister's wedding but for all sardinia it is true but we are poor and we may still be poor for a long time yet but now we are no longer sick now we can fight now men and machines can work on the campidon useless swamp can be turned into rich farming now the dam on the flu mendoza is complete and many other projects are underway [Music] a poor land and a poor people but a people filled with newborn hope the bad air the malaria has gone now begins a new adventure in sardinia me [Applause] [Applause] you