In the Sinhua Hills (新化丘陵) of Tainan, farms, temples, narrow roads and stands of bamboo dot the landscape, making them virtually indistinguishable from other rural areas in southern Taiwan. There is one important difference, however: over the years, the environment here has alternated between ocean, brackish lagoon, freshwater, and dry land, leaving behind a rich variety and concentration of fossils. As the Cailiao River (菜寮溪) erodes the hills, these fossils are continuously being exposed.
These fossils were first excavated for academic study during the Japanese colonial period, eventually culminating in the opening of a museum dedicated to their display. Over the
Lien Jih-ching (連日清), an entomologist and public health expert who helped in the effort to have the WHO in 1965 declare Taiwan to be “malaria free,” died on Wednesday.
He was 96.
Born in Taipei’s Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area, Lien’s connection with mosquito studies began at age 15 when he worked part-time at the Tropical Medicine Research Institute at what was at the time Taihoku Imperial University, now National Taiwan University.
Lien worked for Omori Nanzaburo, a Japanese entomologist, helping him to develop prevention strategies and treatments for dengue fever.
During a dengue fever outbreak in Taiwan in 1942, an estimated 5 million out of