FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



Sinai Hospital in New York. He told me that over there he had 

 had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Ivantcheff, whom I had met 

 in Celli's laboratory in 1910, and who had gone with Celli, Dr. 

 Vail and myself on the never-to-be-forgotten journey to the 

 Campagna which I have described elsewhere. He told me that 

 Ivantcheff was in charge of the Bulgarian governmental lab- 

 oratories, that he had married and had had two children and 

 had grown very gray since I had seen him. 



I knew that Ferdinand of Bulgaria was a good deal of a 

 naturalist, and that his name had been removed from the list 

 of honorary members of the Entomological Society of France 

 when Bulgaria entered the war on the side of Germany. Dr. 

 Plotz told me that he had met King Ferdinand on several 

 occasions, and that he had sat with him one evening, listening 

 to the birds' calls, Ferdinand identifying them all from their 

 notes. The King was greatly afraid of disease, and especially of 

 typhus fever. An interesting bit of unrelated history is that on 

 one occasion, after having visited certain Balkan towns. Dr. 

 Plotz was called before a War Council at which were seated, 

 among others, the Crown Prince of Bulgaria and Field Marshal 

 Mackensen of the German Army. After Dr. Plotz had bowed, 

 the Crown Prince said to him, "You have visited certain towns. 

 Is there typhus present in those towns?" 



Dr. Plotz replied affirmatively. 



The Crown Prince then asked, "In your opinion, would it 

 be unsafe to quarter troops in those towns?" 



And Dr. Plotz again replied affirmatively. 



The significance of this inquiry appeared later, since it altered 

 the intention of the Germans and the Bulgarians to concentrate 

 large bodies of troops at these points for the purpose of wiping 

 out the Allies at Salonika, a military maneuver which, had it 



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