ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



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PHILADELPHIA, PA., MAY, 1906. 



Several times we have published comments on articles 

 noticed in medical journals and called attention to the neces- 

 sity of medical colleges giving a course on the principles of 

 entomology, in view of the fact that so many diseases are 

 carried by insects. The quotation below is from the April, 

 1906, "Medical Brief," page 282, and carries us back before 

 the time of Dr. Francesco Redi, who lived about 1618. It has 

 been questioned whether such a statement as that in the 

 ' Brief" is meant seriously, but from articles we have seen in 

 other medical journals and from conversation with some medi- 

 cal men there can be no question about it. 



'Take the human seed germs (spermatozoa), put them 

 upon a plate, first spreading some alkaline nourishment upon 

 the plate ; for instance a little soap, place the plate in a room 

 of proper temperature, and in sixteen to twenty-four hours, 

 swarms of ants will be running about. In other words, these 

 living human germs placed under this different condition other 

 than the mother soil, develop into ants. These little fellows 

 can be watched and be seen to gradually develop and start off 

 on the run. This would evidently appear that living germs, 

 when placed by accident, or otherwise, under very different 

 conditions, produce very different forms of life. But what 

 relationship do we owe to the ant? Perhaps this is why the 

 claim is made that the ant has more characteristics of the 

 human being than any other animal." 



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