FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



Having studied dieir characteristic markings and structure, he 

 began such work on the larvae of mosquitoes. And thus began 

 his work with this group which lasted until the time of his 

 death. Dyar, by the way, was a very ingenious and original 

 fellow. While he gave due weight to the opinions of others, 

 these did not greatly influence his original thought. For example, 

 let us take his thesis on the bacteria in the air of New York 

 City. Having done some morphological work with insects, he 

 was impressed by the difficulty in characterizing bacteria, in 

 that they were morphologically so similar. This was at a time 

 when the specificity of these micro-organisms, especially as to 

 their causation of certain diseases, was being insisted upon by 

 the Koch school. But Dyar insisted on the possibility that certain 

 forms considered to be specific might not really be so, but that 

 in different environments they might alter both in character and 

 effect. It is interesting to note that bacteriology of late has been 

 turning in the direction of his views. 



But in telling of the preparation of the Carnegie monograph 

 and of Dyar's much later volume and of Dyar himself we 

 have gone far ahead of the story. 



When the little book on mosquitoes was published in 1901, 

 a friend came to me and said that he had heard some army 

 people at the Chevy Chase Club talking vigorously about the 

 way I had treated Dr. Reed in the book. I then became aware 

 for the first time that, contrary to what I had stated on pp. 

 122-23 of the book. Dr. Reed had undertaken his mosquito 

 investigation on his own initiative and without suggestion from 

 the Surgeon-General. I was at that time preparing an article 

 for the Review of Reviews on this general subject, and I went 

 immediately to the Army Medical Museum to explain matters 

 to Dr. Reed. He received me very kindly and said that he 



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