350 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1947 



testing equipment including mosquito repellents in the vicinity of 

 Churchill, Manitoba, Canada (8) ^ This Army outpost on the western 

 shore of Hudson Bay was chosen for the tests partly because of its 

 accessibility, but largely because it lies in the midst of some first-rate 

 mosquito-breeding country. In my naive, provincial way I thought I 

 had already seen mosquitoes on the loose, but I was not prepared for 

 the countless numbers of Aedes that accompanied us almost constantly 

 on our daily routine at Churchill. They rode on our protected backs 

 for miles through the muskeg, they cluttered the window screens of our 

 barracks in a vain attempt to get food, and they entered our cargo 

 planes and traveled for miles in every direction. On one trip to 

 Southampton Island, in northern Hudson Bay, thousands of the in- 

 sects took off from Churchill with us and made it easily to the next stop 

 500 miles distant. En route, the temperature soon became too low for 

 much activity on their part; but upon landing at Coral Beach they 

 swarmed up and soon tried to bite. 



Moore and I arranged a simulated forced march of several days 

 through the muskeg (9). Two Medical Corps officers, Capt. S. M. 

 Fierst and Lt. D. A. Tutrone, and 12 enlisted men were detailed to 

 accompany us. Without benefit of trails, shelter, or food other than 

 what we carried on our backs, we headed into the wilderness. Every- 

 where the ground was wet from the melting of ice a few inches below 

 the surface. Travel was tough, and our feet were constantly wet. 

 Every afternoon we spent hours seeking an elevation high enough on 

 which to make our camp. We wore heavy clothing, partly as a protec- 

 tion against mosquitoes and partly as insurance against being chilled 

 by sudden snow or northern wind storms. Fighting mosquito hordes 

 while wearing heavy clothing and loaded packs during days when the 

 temperature occasionally rose above 80° F. was not so difficult as pre- 

 paring for meals and sleeping. Wliile we were eating we could not 

 wear gloves and headnets and continually dope ourselves with insect 

 repellents, consequently the insects were constantly attempting to bite 

 our hands and faces. At nearly every meal, numbers of mosquitoes 

 accidently landed in everyone's beans and coffee. 



The object of our hike was to determine which gave better protec- 

 tion — heavy clothing, or the chemical mosquito repellents we had 

 brought from the Orlando laboratory. One day we would try double 

 layers of heavy clothing, without repellents. The next, our Army 

 personnel would serve as human guinea pigs. Their faces would be 

 protected with head nets, but their arms and legs would be left bare 

 and we would apply a different repellent to each of a man's bare arms 

 and legs. We w^ould then clock the time between application of the 

 repellent and the first, second, and third mosquito bites (table 1 ) . The 



1 Numbers in parentheses refer to bibliography. 



