176 Obituary 



flea, thereby blocking the passage of the alimentary canal. Further 

 efforts made by the insect at sucking only result in blood being imbibed 

 as far as the oesophagus, and a certain amount of the bloc^d which is 

 taken in flows back into the puncture. Since this blood is freely con- 

 taminated with plague bacilli an uninfected host is rendered liable in 

 this way to contract the disease. In 1914 Bacot went out to W. Africa 

 as a member of a Yellow Fever Commission instituted by the Colonial 

 Office. While on this work he made a number of observations on the 

 bionomics of the mosquito Stegomyia fasciata, which is the intermediary 

 host of the disease in question. During the p(>riod of the War, Bacot 

 was mainly engaged in investigating the body louse and its relation to 

 trench fever. After the conclusion of hostilities he turned his attention 

 to the role which that same insect performs in the transmission of typhus 

 fever from man to man. In this capacity he did useful work in Poland. 

 Armed with the experience thus gained, he proceeded along with his 

 colleague Arkwright to Cairo, early in the present year, and there 

 continued to work at aspects of the same problem in the Laboratories 

 of the Institute of Public Health. Unfortunately both men fell victims 

 to the disease not long after their arrival in Egypt. How Bacot became 

 infected does not appear to be known. He was removed to the fever 

 hospital at Abbassia, but succumbed to the malady in rather less than 

 three weeks after the first symptoms appeared. His colleague happily 

 survived and we understand that he is now on the road to recovery. 

 Bacot's funeral took plaee at the British cemetery, old Cairo, and was 

 attended by a concourse of people, both English and Egyptian, repre- 

 senting many branches of scientific work. His body was borne to its 

 final resting place by friends and colleagues working in the same 

 laboratories. 



Bacot's death adds another name to the roll of investigators who 

 have given their lives while endeavouring to solve problems connected 

 with this virulent disease. His place is a hard one to fill, and he has 

 left an enduring name in the annals of medical entomology. The 

 Association of Economic Biologists loses a valuable member, and he 

 had only been elected to the Council of that Society during the present 

 year. Bacot became a Fellow of the Entomological Society of London 

 in 1907, and probably many entomologists recall his last attendance at 

 a meeting, towards the end of last year, when he exhibited micro- 

 photographs of the eggs of the European and oriental species of an 

 insect also concerned with the transmission of disease. 



A. D. IMMS. 



