Israel Jacob Kligler was a microbiologist, a Zionist, and a key contributor to the eradication of malaria in Israel. Malaria was a major factor in morbidity and death in the country, and had important repercussions for Jewish settlement. Before the
Aliyah, Kligler gathered information about the health issues in the country and acquired experience in the field by joining a delegation for the Study of Yellow Fever in South America. Kligler prepared a malaria eradication program that was sent to several organizations and public figures, including Justice Louis Brandeis, who visited the country in 1919 and was shocked by the morbidity of malaria. After failing to convince
Chaim Weizmann and the Zionist executives of the need to invest in the eradication of malaria, Brandeis privately financed $10,000 for an experimental malaria elimination project. This project was directed by Kliger and run through
Hadassah Medical Centre. In the Galilee and around Lake Kinnereth (
Sea of Galilee), malaria had decimated the Jewish settlements, with the incidence rate "at better than 95 percent of the workers in 1919." His work demonstrated that drainage of the swamps alone would have had little effect on the malaria, because the mosquitoes breed in small pools of water, which even the most elaborate system of drainage would not have reached. It was subsequently pointed out that at least half of the malaria could be ascribed simply to human carelessness and neglect. This resulted in such an improvement to the quality of the land with respect to malaria and marshes that agriculture could be introduced safely. the importance lies in the protocols used to define which of the known species of
Gambusia was best suited to the local conditions. The fish effectively reduced the number of mosquito larva surviving into adulthood. The result, combined with drainage techniques, was the almost total eradication of malaria in the upper
Jordan Valley, i.e. the Huleh area, north of the Sea of Galilee. (Figure 3) In 1925, Kligler stated in a preliminary report that between 1922 and 1925, new malaria incidences had declined tenfold. In reality, the incidence rate had dropped to zero in most places in the upper
Galilee and
Jezreel Valley. Between 1922 and 1926, there was almost complete elimination of
Anopheles and malaria in those areas. The achievements of Kligler and his staff in combating malaria were brought to the attention of the
Health Organization, an agency of the
League of Nations, the predecessor of the
World Health Organization, which in May 1925 sent a delegation to Mandatory Palestine. (Figure 4) The delegation gave international recognition to the importance of anti-malarial activity conducted in the country. Kligler lectured on the war against malaria in Mandatory Palestine at the first international malaria conference held in Rome in October 1925; in the lecture he described the main effort is directed towards destruction of breeding places of mosquitoes. In 1927, he founded the "Malaria Research Station" of the Hebrew University in
Rosh Pina, where pioneering fieldwork was carried out relating to the eradication of malaria. Two years later, he appointed Dr.
Gideon Mer as the station manager and together they published a series of articles on malaria. In a 1932 report, Kligler stated the disease was largely controlled in Jewish and neighboring Arab villages. In non-Jewish regions, malaria was still common. Kligler wrote that nevertheless, “tremendous progress has been made in the last ten years toward the control and, in many places, the elimination of this scourge.” In a 1936 Memorandum to the United Nations Special Committee, the British Administration reported census numbers and stated that the anti-malaria campaign was a factor in helping to increase the Arab population in Palestine. ==References==