-A HISTORY OF APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY 



(Somewhat Anecdotal) 

 By L. O. HOWARD 



(With 51 Plates) 



INTRODUCTION 



We need not concern ourselves with speculations concerning the 

 damage done by insects to the food crops of ancient civilizations. 

 Undoubtedly wherever a center of human civilization had its begin- 

 nings—just as soon as plant food began to be grown on a sufficient 

 scale to feed many people — certain injurious insects began to increase 

 in number. New oi)portunities for their increase were being offered 

 to them — their increase was really being encouraged. If we had the 

 records of lost civilizations, no doubt these losses by insects would 

 appear. 



Here and there significant things have been recorded by Herodotus, 

 Pausanius, Theodoritus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Pliny and others. 

 The downfall of the old Greek civilization has been attributed largely 

 to the introduction of malaria (a mosc|uito-l)orne disease) by invad- 

 ing Persian armies. The shifting of the prehistoric civilizations of 

 Central America may have been influenced largely by the occasional 

 devastations of migratory grasshoppers. The prophet Joel records 

 the woes of the ancient Hebrew farmers. 



The rise of the nations of western and northern Europe, however, 

 went on steadily. They were relatively free from the malaria scourge. 

 LIncleanly personal habits and lack of sanitary arrangements, how- 

 ever, allowed the unhindered spread of another insect-borne disease — 

 the plague — which in epidemic form from time to time carried off 

 large percentages of the population. But the plague epidemics, the 

 constant wars, typhus (another insect-borne disease), and other 

 causes prevented rapid increases of population ; the agriculture that 

 grew up was one based on small holdings, and the loss through 

 insects except occasionally was probably not excessive and was not 

 appreciated. Comparatively little attention was paid to insect dam- 

 age in Europe until within the last one hundred years, and even dur- 

 ing the early part of that ])eriod the damage to forests was the item 

 particularly stressed. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 84 (Whole Volume) 



I 



