15 



The indications would seem in fact to justify the hope that by the 

 systematic application of these measures the malaria in a community 

 niav be held within reasonable bounds and that this result may be 

 RccompUshed within limits of cost which the average community may 

 well afford. Experience shows that the people in these communities are 

 prepared to provide the funds for malaria control by public taxation 

 when they have been shown by demonstration that the programme 

 proposed "will accomphsh definite results which justify the expenditure. 

 The results thus far accomphshed would seem to justify continuing 

 these field experiments until the principal procedures that have been 

 found useful in controlhng malaria have been pretty thoroughly tested 

 separately and thus evaluated. It will then be possible to operate 

 intelhgently a combined programme in which each control measure 

 will be given its place and will receive varying emphasis from time to 

 time according to the local conditions which have to be met. This 

 freedom will in turn contribute toward the object in view, namely, the 

 hishest decree of malaria control consistent with a reasonably low 

 cost per capita. 



Patton (W. S.). Note on the Etiology of Oriental Sore in Mesopotamia. 



—Bvll. Soc. Path. Ei-ot., Pinis, xii, no. 8. 8th October 1919, 

 pp. 500-504. 



It is recognised that much of the future success of the colonisation 

 of Mesopotamia will depend on the control of three injurious Diptera. 

 The house-fly, Miisca domestica, subsp. determmata, Wlk., and iti 

 ally the camp-fly, Musca humilis, Wied, {angustifrons, Thomp., 

 eu'teniata, Big.), constitute the most dangerous insect menace in the 

 country. Ophthalmia is carried by the house-fly, bacillary dysentery 

 and similar diseases by M. humilis and M. determinala. Both species 

 breed all the year round and thus are particularly difficult to control. 



Tabamis jyulchellus, Lw. {cyprianus, Ric), which is the commonest 

 and most widely distributed horse-fly, and is very clo:;ely alUed to 

 T. ditae7nat'us,'Msicq., and T. glaber are most probably the vectors of the 

 fatal dromedary trypanosomiasis that caused the loss of hundreds, 

 probably thousands, of these transport animals during the recent 

 campaign. The Arab dromedary breeders who hve in the deserts 

 bordering the rivers take such careful precautions to protect their 

 animals from the bites of these flies that their losses are neghgible. 



The sand-flies, Phlebotonms jxipalasii and P. minutus, transmit the 

 unknown organism of sand-fly fever, and are also beUeved to be the 

 carriers of the parasite of Oriental sore. On the analogy of kala-azar, 

 which is caused by natural parasites (Herpetomonads) of insects that 

 have adopted the blood-sucking habit in association with vertebrate 

 hosts, the author based his observations on Oriental sore on the 

 h}TDothesis that the disease is of insect origin, in the sense that the 

 parasite is in reahty some natural insect Herpeiomonas which has 

 become transmitted "to man, in short, that the insect is the reservoir 

 of the parasite. As the genus Cimex does not occur in Mesopotaniia, 

 the species of Phlebotomus are the most Ukely reservoirs of the parasite. 

 Both species occurring there are known to be infected with Herpe- 

 fomonas jMebotomi, Mackie. The author believes that this is a natural 

 parasite of these midges and is transmitted through their larvae to 



