HUMAN IMPLICATIONS 24 1 



domesticated plants and animals, and the insects that 

 carry many of these germs as well as working notable 

 direct injury. To the biologist this is not even the 

 age of man, however great his superiority in size 

 and intelligence; it is literally the age of insects. (7) 



This is a fact which must have repeated emphasis. 

 In the tropics there is only the narrow strip along 

 the Panama Canal and similar small areas in which 

 man has shown the ability to compete successfully 

 with the insects; and the techniques of this competi- 

 tion are too expensive as yet to apply along the vast 

 rich stretches of the Orinoco River, the Amazon or 

 Congo; there, undoubtedly, the insects are in con- 

 trol. In countries like India and Russia mosquito- 

 borne malaria is a plague which saps the energy of 

 those enormous populations as it does today in our 

 own South. 



There are good biological precedents for such 

 competition between different types of organisms as 

 that between man and insects or betw^een man and 

 bacteria. In fact, with almost negligible exceptions, 

 the only kind of mass slaughter for which there is 

 precedent in animal biology is found in interspecific 

 struggles. One species of animal may destroy another 

 and individuals may kill other individuals, but group 

 struggles to the death between numbers of the same 



