424 MOSQUITOES OF NORTH AMERICA 



" The qualities chiefly necessary [in a superintendent] are energy, persistence, 

 and an entire indifference to public or private opinion. The need of the first 

 two is obvious ; that of the last requires some explanation. The self-appointed 

 superintendent will be at once astonished, and perhaps alarmed, at finding that 

 his philanthropic and wholly harmless efforts are met at the outset by a storm 

 of letters to the local press, demonstrating the absurdity and even immorality of 

 his intentions ; proving that mosquitoes cannot be destroyed, that they spring 

 from grass and trees ; that they can be destroyed, but that it is wicked to make 

 the attempt because they were created to punish man; that they do not carry 

 malaria, because malaria is a gas which rushes out of holes in the ground, and 

 rises as a blue mist over the country ; that they do not carry yellow fever, which is 

 due to the effect of the tropical sun on rotting vegetation ; that they do carry 

 malaria and yellow fever, but in such small quantities that they act beneficially 

 as unpaid vaccinators of these diseases ; and so on.* It is possible to ignore all 

 such epistles, because, where they do not contradict each other, someone else is 

 sure to contradict them ; but an occasional letter in reply does good, and, to speak 

 practically but rather cynically, serves to stimulate the necessary public interest 

 in the work by keeping the letter-writers at such a pitch of exasperation that they 

 give the campaign a constant stream of gratuitous advertisement in the news- 

 papers. We are permitted to be cynical in a good cause. 



" Fortunately, operations against mosquitoes can be conducted on a large 

 scale without much reference to private opinions — fortunately, because the 

 inertia of the masses regarding new pathological discoveries is so great that were 

 we to depend upon converting them, nothing would be done for half a century. 

 For some inscrutable reason, the man in the street, though he would scarcely 

 think of contradicting a lawyer or an engineer on matters of law or engineering, 

 finds himself quite equal to exposing the absurdities of the whole Medical Faculty 

 on a medical matter. 



" These operations require no sacrifices or co-operation on the part of the 

 general public. Most householders are glad enough to have their mosquito larvae 

 destroyed, and their backyards cleaned up for nothing. The reader, therefore, 

 if he sees fit to start the work we are considering, may quietly proceed in it un- 

 disturbed by criticism, and may calculate upon receiving not only as much public 

 support as his work will require during its progress, but the thanks of his fellows 

 at its termination. Indeed, the majority of the public will not be slow to recog- 

 nise the value of his efforts, even if they do not understand the scientific reasons 

 which have induced him to make them." 



In community work, after making an effort to insure the absence of household 

 breeding, the attention of the superintendent should be devoted to chance pools 

 along the public roadway and to breeding-places in unused land. Drainage or 

 filling in are the best measures to adopt. The superintendent will find it ad- 

 visable to attempt first to extirpate those breeding-places from which the greatest 

 numbers of mosquitoes are issuing. In this way, he will the sooner bring about 

 an appreciable diminution of the number of the insects, and of course the sooner 

 this diminution is noticed by the citizens the sooner will popular sentiment 

 unanimously support the work. The less populous breeding-places may await 

 treatment until a later date. 



Large-scale operations requiring a considerable expenditure of money must be 

 organized very perfectly as to detail. The first example of this large-scale work 



* JSioie. — Dr. Ross states that he has " seen every one of these statements, and many 

 others equally absurd, made at least half a dozen times in the British press." 



