630 Insects and Disease 



Another test in the same year was made by Professor Grassi near Salerno. 

 "The objects of this experiment were," writes Howard, "(i) to afford 

 absolute proof of the fact that malaria is transmitted exclusively by the 

 bite of Anopheles mosquitoes; (2) to found, on the results of recent research ; 

 a code of rules to be adopted for freeing Italy from malaria in a few years. 

 The experiment consisted in protecting from malaria railway employees 

 and their families, living in ten cottages, at the stations of St. Nicolo, Var- 

 co, and Albanella, situated along the Battipaglia-Reggio Railway. They 

 numbered one hundred and four persons, including thirty-three children 

 under ten years of age. Of these one hundred and four individuals, at 

 least eleven, including four children, had never suffered from the disease, 

 not having previously lived in a malarious district; a certain number, it 

 appeared, had not suffered from it in two or three years, and all the others, 

 that is to say, the large majority, had suffered from it during the last malarial 

 season, some of them even in the winter. During the malarial season the 

 health of the protected individuals was good, with the exception of a few 

 cases of bronchitis and a case of acute gastro-enteritis. None of these cases 

 was treated with quinine. The one hundred and four persons, with three 

 exceptions, had remained free from malaria up to September i6th, the date 

 of the report." 



These two experiments alone would be conclusive. Since 1900, however, 

 the brilliantly successful results of actual practical measures undertaken 

 on a large scale in Africa under the supervision of English experts, and in 

 many European and American localities by army, governmental, and munici- 

 pal authorities, have settled the matter of malaria infection for all time. 

 It only remains now to adopt in medical practice everywhere and in the work 

 of boards of health, other municipal and country boards of supervision, the 

 efficacious methods, well proved, of fighting malaria by fighting mosquitoes. 

 An account of some of these methods, together with the facts of the life-history 

 of mosquitoes, and information regarding the distinguishing characters 

 of the malaria-bearers (Anopheles) and the non-malarial kinds (Culex and 

 others), are given on pp. 305 et seq. of this book. In addition I may simply 

 say, when in malarial regions avoid the bite of a mosquito as you would that 

 0} a rattlesnake. One can be quite as serious in its results as the other. 



Mosquitoes and yellow fever. So much space has been given to the 

 account of the relation of mosquitoes to the propagation and dissemination 

 of malaria that we can do only scant justice to the mosquitoes in their role 

 as disseminators of other diseases. 



Although yellow fever is a plague long known and one much studied, 

 so that its diagnosis and its treatment are well understood and are the neces- 

 sary knowledge of every physician practicing in tropical regions, and although 

 we know certainly that it is the result of the growth in the body of a parasitic 



