Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike is an animated short film, directed by Chuck Jones and first released in March 1944. It features Private Snafu facing a malaria-transmitting mosquito.
In the Pacific War, the lack of mosquito control measures had caused malaria to reach epidemic status. Entire infected units had to be evacuated before actually experiencing combat. Early in the war, it was estimated that malaria caused eight to ten times as many casualties as the battlefield. In 1943, James C. Magee, Surgeon General of the United States Army, created special units to plan and carry out malaria control. The same year, Douglas MacArthur issued orders concerning malaria control measures. Among them was raising the shipping priority of anti-malaria supplies, providing troops with prophylactic drugs (quinine and atabrine) and mosquito repellents, and training troops in the importance of malaria.
Soldiers were reluctant to take antimalarials (particularly Atabrine, which had worse side-effects than quinine) because of the side-effects, and Private SNAFU vs. Malaria Mike was an attempt to challenge this aversion.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Public Domain Movies to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
