226 GNATS OR MOSQUITOES — CHAPTER VIII 



ciently noticed, as they are merely such as have been 

 suggested as corporate operations, but on a smaller scale ; 

 but as the tropical resident usuall}' lives in houses sur- 

 rounded by a considerable area under his own control, a 

 good deal more might be affected in this way than is usually 

 the case in Europe, By a very little personal trouble and 

 superintendence there should be no difficulty whatever in 

 doing away with all breeding places within one's own com- 

 pound, and an occasional round, followed by a coolie armed 

 with a can of kerosine, would do much to keep them down 

 in our immediate neighbourhood, while occasional fumiga- 

 tion with sulphur, especially of one's servants' houses, during 

 the hybernating season would help to minimise the number 

 of immigrants from the quarters of less careful folks. But 

 our main reliance must be placed on precautions against 

 being bitten, the principal of these being to endeavour to 

 keep Mosquitoes out of our houses ; and the wonderful 

 success obtained by Professor A. Celli in the case of certam 

 railway employes on the line from Rome to Solmona shows 

 that this is by no means as difficult as one would have 

 expected. 



No one can read his recent pamphlet " Sulla nuova 

 profilassi della malaria," in which he gives an account of 

 these results, without being convinced of this ; unless they 

 prefer to regard the account as an effort of the imagination, 

 a supposition which no one who has had the pleasure 

 of talking with that distinguished hygienist would for a 

 moment countenance. Selecting a notoriously malarious 

 portion of the line, he had about half the cottages in which 

 the railway men with their families live made roughly 

 Mosquito-proof by protecting all the windows with fixed 

 screens of wire gauze, and by providing all entrances with 

 double spring doors of the same material, as shown in the 

 accompanying illustration, reproduced by Professor Celli's 

 courteous permission, while the other moiety were left in 

 their original condition. The experiments have been now in 

 progress for nearly three years, and counting each year as 

 a separate observation, the results may be epitomised 

 roughly as follows : In 25 protected cottages with a popu- 



