Get here the notes, questions, answers, textbook solutions, summary, extras, and PDF of BSEM or BoSEM (Manipur Board) Class 10 Additional English prose (Chapter 3) “The Conquest of Malaria” by T.C. Bridges and H.H. Tiltman. However, the provided notes should only be treated as references, and the students are encouraged to make changes to them as they feel appropriate.
Summary
The story is about the discovery of how malaria is spread, through the research of Sir Patrick Manson and Sir Ronald Ross. Manson initially discovered that the mosquito was a carrier of the parasite that causes elephantiasis and proposed the idea that it may also be responsible for spreading malaria. However, it was Ross who conducted the experiments that confirmed this theory. He attempted to infect mosquitoes with the parasites of malaria by having them suck up blood from infected individuals, but initially failed because he was using the wrong type of mosquito.
He continued to experiment for months, disproving Manson’s theory that the disease was spread through infected water and ultimately discovering that it was only the female of a certain variety of mosquito that was able to spread the disease. The discovery marked the beginning of a famous partnership between Manson and Ross, who continued to work together and inspire each other in their research.
In his memoir, Sir Ross relates how he tried to establish the truth or otherwise of the infected water theory by taking four mosquitoes that had fed upon a malaria victim and placing them in two bottles with a little water. The bottles were kept in a cool place for a week, at the end of which the mosquitoes were dead. In addition to the bodies of the infected mosquitoes, the bottles contained grubs, showing that the eggs laid by the insects had been hatched. Now Ross made his test. After removing the bodies of the mosquitoes, but not the grubs, he gave the contents of the bottles to a certain native who volunteered, after a full explanation of the water. The result of the experiment was odd. One man developed an illness that at first seemed like malaria, but when his blood was examined, no malarial parasites were found. Two other men who drank the infected water remained quite well.
Further experiments with infected water yielded negative results. In fact, that first case of intermittent fever, which was a coincidence, was the only one in which any after-effects followed the drinking of water exposed to infected insects. Eventually, Ross abandoned Manson’s theory, so far as the means of infection were concerned, and began to search for other means by which the parasites within the mosquito might enter the blood of a human being – the search was to end in his brilliant discovery.
By now he had begun to suspect that the mosquito he sought was a type that eluded him. One morning, a mosquito-man, one of the three who collected the insects for him, produced some larvae, which hatched into brown mosquitoes with three black bars on their wings. These proved to be dappled-winged mosquitoes of a type that Ross had not worked with before. They were allowed to bite a malaria patient in the hospital, and later some were dissected.
Word study and use
Exercise 1: Give the noun forms of the following words: tropicals; malarial; colossal; infected; monstrous; definitely; contrived; dissected; reveals; conclusive; prevent.
Answers: Tropic, malaria, colossus, Infection, monster, definitiveness, contrivance, dissection, revelation, conclusion, prevention
Exercise 2: Frame sentences to illustrate the use of the following: child’s play; suck up; on the right road; tried out; live on; be in no hurry; after-effects.
Answers: i. Solving this math problem is child’s play compared to the physics problem we did earlier.
ii. The vacuum cleaner is designed to suck up dirt and debris from the floor.
iii. After months of searching, I finally feel like I’m on the right road to finding a new job.
iv. I’m going to try out this new recipe for dinner tonight.
v. Many people in the world have to live on very little money.
vi. I’m in no hurry to finish this project, I want to take my time and make sure it’s done well.
vii. After taking the medication, I experienced some after-effects such as drowsiness and dizziness.
Exercise 3: Frame sentences to illustrate the use of the following as directed-
(a) live (as verb and as adjective).
(b) infected (as verb and adjective).
(c) powerless (as noun and as adjective).
Answers: a) I live in a small town in the countryside.
I have a live performance to attend tonight.
b) I infected my computer with a virus by clicking on a suspicious link.
The patient was infected with a rare disease.
c) He felt powerless against the forces of nature.
The government was powerless to stop the spread of the disease.
Exercise 4: Give one word for each of the following groups of words.
e.g. a disease resulting from the bite of certain types of mosquitoes
(Anopheles) Malaria
(i) A disease in which sugar and starch are not properly absorbed from the blood
(ii) An animal or plant that lives (ii) on or in another gets its food from it.
(iii) an inability to sleep.
(iv) a disease of an abnormal growth of cells in the body which often causes death.
(v) a person who studies or writes about history.
(vi) celebration of a date that is exactly a year or a number of years after an event.
(vii) an account written usually by somebody in public life of their own life and experiences.
(viii) A disease which causes legs and arms, or other parts of the body to assume monstrous proportions.
(ix) A substances used for killing insects.
(x) A rapid spread of a disease among many people in the same place.
(xi) An infectious and often fatal disease causing severe diarrhoea and vomiting.
(xi) An often fatal disease of the liver suffered specially by people who drink too much alcohol.
Answers: (i) Diabetes
(ii) Parasite
(iii) Insomnia
(iv) Cancer
(v) Historian
(vi) Anniversary
(vii) Autobiography
(viii) Elephantiasis
(ix) Insecticide
(x) Epidemic
(xi) Cholera
(xii) Cirrhosis
Comprehension
1. What was the extent of the trouble which malaria used to cause in the tropical countries?
Answer: According to the extract, malaria was a prevalent disease in tropical countries, causing roughly one third of all the attendances at hospitals and affecting about one third of the entire population in many hot countries every year. Although only about one case in several hundreds proves fatal, the total number of deaths due to it is colossal. It was officially estimated that in India alone something like 1,300,000 deaths are caused by it in an average year.
2. Why did malaria remain a plague over a vast part of the earth’s surface?
Answer: Due to its pervasiveness, malaria continues to be a global health crisis that concerns everyone residing in areas where it is present.
3. What were the theories scientists and doctors used to advance about the possible cause of malaria?
Answer: Scientists and medical professionals formerly assumed that mosquitoes or infected water were to blame for malaria. Eventually, evidence showed both theories wrong.
4. What was the discovery of Sir Patrick Manson ?
Answer: Sir Patrick Manson was a Scottish doctor who discovered that the mosquito was the carrier of the germ which caused elephantiasis.
5. What was the famous partnership in the history of research referred to in the lesson? What was the outcome of the partnership?
Answer: The lesson’s focus is on the cooperation between Sir Patrick Manson and Sir Ronald Ross. The discovery that the Anopheles mosquito is the carrier of the malaria parasite was made possible because Manson, stationed in London, offered the hypotheses and Ross, situated in India, carried out the research. Millions of lives were saved as a result of this discovery, which illuminated the mechanisms of disease transmission and provided new avenues for combat.
Composition
1. Describe the experiments of Sir Ronald Ross which led to his abandonment of the theory of Manson.
Answer: Ross conducted studies to verify Manson’s hypothesis that malaria was spread when a mosquito drank water contaminated with blood it had just sucked up. Ross put four mosquitoes that had fed on a malarial patient into two bottles with a small amount of water and stored them in a cool spot for a week to see if his idea held water. By the end of the week, all the mosquitoes had died, and grubs could be seen in the bottles, proving that the mosquitoes’ eggs had successfully hatched. After administering the contents of the bottles to a select group of native volunteers, he observed no positive effects. It turns out that the only time drinking water contaminated by insects had any negative consequences was the first time someone had intermittent fever. When it became clear that Manson’s idea couldn’t account for how the mosquito-borne parasites spread to humans, Ross gave up on it and began looking elsewhere.
2. Describe how Ross found out two unknown things from his experiments.
Answer: Ross discovered that the germs of malaria were sucked by certain mosquitoes from the body of an infected human being, and developed in the stomach tissue of the insect. He found out two unknown things simultaneously: the kind of mosquito which carries the parasite, and the form and position of the parasite within it. By an extremely lucky observation he discovered that the mosquito was the Anopheles, and the parasite lives in or on its gastric wall and can be recognised at once by the characteristic pigment.
3. Write a project report on eradication programme of malaria organised in your locality.
Answer: Imphal Launches Massive Drive Against Malaria: Successful Eradication Efforts Show Positive Results
A new malaria eradication initiative has been initiated in the city of Imphal, Manipur, and residents have much to celebrate. Mosquito net distribution, indoor residual spraying, and community education are just some of the methods used in this initiative, which was initiated by the Imphal Municipal Corporation in collaboration with the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme.
Malaria cases in the region have decreased dramatically thanks to the initiative, by nearly half in the past year. Given that malaria has been prevalent in and around Imphal for quite some time, this is a tremendous success for the programme and the community.
The provision of mosquito nets to local homes is a fundamental strategy of the initiative. Insecticide-treated mosquito nets can stop the transmission of disease by stopping mosquito reproduction. The initiative has also sprayed indoor residual pesticides in homes and public areas to eliminate adult mosquitoes and prevent the spread of disease.
Awareness and education among the community have also been prioritised heavily by the initiative. Educating locals on malaria’s origins and prevention, as well as how to make the most of mosquito nets and other measures, has been a top priority for health officials, who have been making the rounds recently.
The effectiveness of community-based initiatives in fighting diseases like malaria has been demonstrated by this program’s success. Thank you to the Imphal Municipal Corporation and the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme for your work to reduce malaria cases and better the lives of locals. In the next months, the initiative will continue and grow to serve a broader cross-section of the state’s population.
4. “The hour for the final onslaught had struck, Manson explained his theories to Ross…” Why does the writer say that the meeting of Sir Ronald Ross and Manson was the hour for the final onslaught?
Answer: The meeting between Sir Ronald Ross and Manson is described as “the hour for the final onslaught” to stress its significance in malaria research. The expression implies that prior attempts to comprehend and combat malaria had failed and that this encounter was a turning point in the fight against the disease. The word “final” suggests that this was a watershed moment in the war against malaria, and that Ross and Manson’s collaboration marked a fresh and resolute attempt to end the illness once and for all. It was important that Ross and Manson met since that was the beginning of their collaboration, during which they were able to debunk the prevailing hypotheses regarding malaria’s transmission and find the true source of the disease, as well as effective treatments.
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