226 THE HOUSE FLY—DISEASE CARRIER 
couraged to make drawings on the blackboard of mos¬ 
quitoes in all stages of development. Lessons were 
given; compositions were written on the subject; com¬ 
petitive examinations were held, and groups of boys 
and girls were sent out with the teachers on searching 
expeditions for the breeding places. 
Rivalry sprang up between the 10,000 public school 
children in the city in finding and reporting to the 
health office the greatest number of breeding places 
found and destroyed. Records were kept on the black¬ 
boards in the schools of the progress of the competi¬ 
tion, and great enthusiasm was stirred up. In addition 
to these measures a course of stereopticon lectures was 
arranged, grouping the pupils in audiences of about 
1,000, from the high school down, and in Doctor Lank¬ 
ford’s words, “It was an inspiring sight to watch these 
audiences of 1,000 children, thoughtful, still as death, 
and staring with wide-open eyes at the wonders re¬ 
vealed by the microscope. It seemed to me that in 
bringing this great question of preventive medicine be¬ 
fore public school children we had hit upon a power 
for good that could scarcely be over-estimated.” As 
a result there was a decided diminution in the numbers 
of mosquitoes in San Antonio. There was some oppo¬ 
sition among the people, but the movement on the 
whole was very popular, and the mortality of the city 
from malarial trouble was reduced seventy-five per cent, 
the first year after the work was begun, and in the 
second year it was entirely eliminated from San An¬ 
tonio ! 
