386 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 4 



AN ANNOTATED LIST OF THE LITERATURE ON INSECTS 

 AND DISEASE FOR THE YEAR 1910 



By R. W. DoANE, Stanford University 



While the year 1910 gave us no positive new discoveries in regard 

 to the relation of insects to disease, it nevertheless marked important 

 advances in the study of several diseases dependent on insects for 

 dissemination. 



As during 1909, greatest interest centered around the studies in 

 regard to Sleeping Sickness. Following Thimm's Bibliography of 

 Sleeping Sickness, published late in 1909, is his subject index to this 

 bibliography, which is a great help to any one studying the subject. 

 The monthly list of publications given in the bulletins of the Sleeping 

 Sickness Bureau contains more than four hundred references to papers 

 and reports pubHshed on this subject in 1910. Many of these deal 

 with the method of transmission of the trypanosome and its devel- 

 opment in the tsetse fly. It is now believed that mechanical trans- 

 mission of the parasite rarely, if ever, occurs, and it has been definitely 

 shown that the trypanosome undergoes a development in the tsetse 

 fly lasting from eighteen to thirty-four days. 



Doctor Sambon's investigations on the cause of pellagra, and the 

 announcement that he finds that it is transmitted by a SimuUum, 

 have excited a great deal of interest and comment. For some time 

 Doctor Sambon has held that there is a definite relation between the 

 disease and these flies. As a result of last season's investigations in 

 Italy he believes that he has collected abundant evidence to prove 

 that these flies are responsible for the dissemination of the disease. 

 The Italian government has been the flrst to take any definite steps 

 toward testing this theory, and has appointed a commission to examine 

 the evidence and to formulate any changes in the existing laws that 

 it may be deemed advisable to make on account of the advances in our 

 knowledge of the disease. American physicians are slow to accept 

 this theory. At least they are waiting to be shown that the flies and 

 the disease always go together in this country, as Sambon claims that 

 they do in Italy. It will take most conclusive evidence to estabhsh 

 this new theory in the minds of those who have been working so long 

 on the relation of maize to the disease. The present year should see 

 much work done on this problem in America. 



The death of Dr. Howard T. Ricketts in Mexico marks the passing 

 of one of the most promising investigators in the field of preventive 

 medicine. Although still a young man he had already accomplished 

 much. It is principally to him that we owe our knowledge of the 



