270 



THE AGRICULTUKAL NEWS. 



August 21, 1909.. 



INSECT NOTES. 



The Mosquito and Sanitation in the West Indies. 



On July S, a lecture on ■Health Progress in the 

 West Indies ' was delivered by Sir Hubert Boyce, F.R.S., 

 under the auspices of the West India Committee, in the 

 Commercial Salerooms, Mincing Lane. The following 

 is a summary of the chief points of the lecture : — • 



The lecturer fir.st in.stanced several places, .such as 

 Havana, Kio de .Janeiro and Santos, where measures taken 

 for mosquito prophylaxis liad resulted in an almost incredible 

 improvement in the health of the population, with the 

 consequent lowering of the death rate. He then stated that 

 lie had made personal examination of the health-conditions 

 of parts of the West Indies in the light of his experience in 

 other parts of the world, such as West Africa, British 

 Honduras, and some of the Central American liepublics. 

 This examination had included St. Vincent, Grenada, 

 St. Lucia, Barbados, Trinidad and British Guiana. There 

 was no need to spend time in giving an account of the signs 

 of the medical progress that was taking place in the West 

 Indies, a progress which was evidenced by the presence of 

 magnificent colonial ho.spitals and ho.spitals for special 

 diseases, as -well as by that of well-organized charities. 

 What was more important to consider was the advance that 

 has been made, on the lines of modern sanitary reform, 

 in the West Indian grouf). This meant the share which the 

 West Indies are taking in the now universal campaign 

 •against the mosquito. The term universal was rightly 

 applied to the campaign, for every civilized State throughout 

 the world was engaged on it, and not before this had become 

 necessary, for it had been truly said that if the loss of life in 

 all the great military campaigns that were best known to 

 history was computed, it could not compart- with the total 

 number of deaths caused by the mosquito. This was illustra- 

 ted by the great loss of life that had been caused by yellow 

 fever alone, in the past, especially in Boston, Baltimore, and 

 riiiladelphia, in some of the S-iuthern States nf America, and 

 in the I'enin.sula. Now, yellow fe'.low has disappeared from 

 most of these places simply on account of the adoption of 

 sanitary reforms wh'ch made for tlie destructicjn of the 

 nioscpiito. 



To return to the West Indies. It was a matter of 

 common knowledge that, among those races, the Spaniards, 

 Lortuguese and French, who first carried conquest from 

 Europe to the West, the mortality from yellow fever 

 was very high. Later, the .same experience was undergone 

 by tlie 1-Jiglish, who were accustomed to lose more than half 

 of their troops in the West Indies, owing to that disease 

 alone. Then came the implication of the Stegomyia mo.squito 

 with the disease. Tliis was the outcome of a mere sus[)icion 

 at first, notably on the 'part of I'.eauperthuy, Surgeon (iencral 

 Blair and Professor Harri-son, the last of whom suggested, in 

 addition, that yellow fever could not be directly communi- 

 cated from one human being to another, but reipiired to pass 

 a period of time outsi<Ie of tlie human body. This suggestion 

 was simultaneously made by Drs. Findlay and Garter in 

 Cuba, and it finally remained to Drs. (..'arroll, Agramonte 



and Lazear to [nove conclusively that the carriage of malarial 

 fever by the Anopheles mosquito, which had been unmistak- 

 ably demonstrated by Dr. Ross, had a parallel in the tran.s- 

 mission of yellow fever by Stegomyia. The result of this 

 discovery was the immediate declaration of war on the last- 

 named mosquito. 



This war w.ts waged by measures for the reduction of 

 its numbers. These were first adopted in Havana, the 

 Isthmian Canal Zone, New Orleans and Piio de Janeiro. 

 Now, active measures are in operation througliout the 

 greater part of the West Indies, not only for the 

 destruction of the yellow fever bearing mosquito, but also for 

 the one responsible for the transmission of malaria. In the 

 majority of the West Indian colonies it is now a punishable 

 oti'ence to harbour mosquito larvae on household premises, and 

 many hundreds of summonses have been i.ssued. School- 

 master.s, sanitary in.spectors and policemen are now being 

 trained in this special form of hygiene, and the seaports are 

 becoming gradually as secure as any town in Europe. 



PREPARATION OF BROOM CORN FOR 

 MAKING INTO BROOMS. 



The following interesting account of the processes 

 to which broom corn is subjected before it is manu- 

 factured into brooms is taken from a L'nited States 

 trade publication : — 



The first brooms manufactured in this country were 

 made in 1798 in Schenectady county. New York. These 

 were sonie\\hat crude affairs, laboriously put together by 

 hand, but they marked the beginning of a great industry 

 It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that 

 the first practical broom-making machine was devised, and it 

 is curious that sinee that time, apart from the minor improve- 

 ments made in the machine, the general principle is the same 

 to-day as it was then. Prom this small beginning the 

 industry has grown until there are manufactured annually 

 in the IJnited States to-day .^l-yjOOOjOOO worth of brooms. 

 Placed end to end, the broom handles alone of the United 

 States would reach one and a half times round the globe. If all 

 the brooms manufactured in the United States were made into 

 one big one, the smallest tree from which the handle might 

 be cut would have to be more than a mile in circumference. 



Although the broom is one of the commonest articles 

 in the world's household, not everyone is acquainted with the 

 details of its manufacture. 



Prom the great fields of Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois, 

 the corn is shipped to the factories. It is dry and yellow, and 

 must go through another process before it is ready to be made 

 into brooms. The big bundles arc untied, aud the corn shaken 

 out, and at about four o'clock in the afternoon the ' wetting 

 down ' process begins. The stalks of corn are fii'st dipped into 

 .1 huge vat containing an aniline dye of a bluish green colour. 

 It is allowed to soak in this for some time, when it is trans- 

 ferred to clear water, thus, at the same time, giving the 

 corn the well-known greenish yellow tinge familiar to all 

 u.sers of brooms and inq>arting to it sufficient moisture to 

 allow it to be worked. Prom the ' wetting down ' process 

 the corn is taken to a large asbesto.s-lincd room, where it is 

 loosely piled, being spread over as large an area as the room- 

 will jierinit. Prom the centre of the room is hung an iron 

 1 pot, in which is, placed a quantity of suliJiur. The sulphur 

 is set on fire at (ibout six o'clock and burns until about mid- 

 night of the .same night. The fumes fill the room and 

 bleach the corn to a certain extent, at the same time remov- 

 ing the surfilus dye. On the following day it is removed 

 from the room and is readv to be worked into brooms. 



