42 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ceived in July, 1899, from Maversville, Miss., Trere accompanied 

 by the statement — which is appropriate, in view of the fact that the 

 newspapers have insisted that the " kissing bug " prefers the lip — • 

 that a friend of the writer was bitten on the lip, and that the effect 

 was a burning pain, intense itching, and much swelling, lasting 

 three or four days. The writer of the letter had been bitten upon 

 the leg and arm, and his brother was bitten upon both feet and 

 legs and on the arm, the symptoms being the same in all cases. 



More need hardly be said specifically concerning these biting 

 bugs. The writer's conclusions are that a puncture by any one of 

 them may be and frequently has been mistaken for a spider bite, 

 and that nearly all reported spider-bite cases have had in reality 

 this cause, that the so-called " kissing-bug " scare has been based 

 upon certain undoubted cases of the bite of one or the other of 

 them, but that other bites, including mosquitoes, wath hysterical 

 and nervous symptoms produced by the newspaper accounts, have 

 aided in the general alarm. The case of Miss Larson, who died in 

 August, 1898, as the result of a mosquito bite, at Mystic, Conn., 

 is an instance which goes to show that no mysterious new insect 

 need be looked for to explain occasional remarkable cases. One 

 good result of the " kissing-bug " excitement will prove in the end 

 to be that it will have relieved spiders from much unnecessary 

 discredit. 



THE MOSQUITO THEORY OF MALARIA.* 



By Majoe KONALD EOSS. 



I HAVE the honor to address you, on completion of my term 

 of special duty for the investigation of malaria, on the subject 

 of the practical results as regard the prevention of the disease 

 which may be expected to arise from my researches; and I trust 

 that this letter may be submitted to the Government if the director 

 general thinks fit. 



It has been shown in my reports to you that the parasites of 

 malaria pass a stage of their existence in certain species of mos- 

 quitoes, by the bites of which they are inoculated into the blood 

 of healthy men and birds. These observations have solved the 

 problem — previously thought insolvable — of the mode of life of 

 these parasites in external Nature. 



My results have been accepted by Dr. Laveran, the discoverer 

 of the parasites of malaria; by Dr. Manson, who elaborated the 



* A report, published in Nature, from Major Ronald Ross to the Secretary to the Director 

 General, Indian Medical Service, Simla. Dated Calcutta, February 16, 1899. 



