48 Proceedings of the First Convention 



consensus of opinion in districts where swamps have been re- 

 claimed and farmed for many years is that there is no more 

 valuable portion of the farm than the swamp, properly re- 

 claimed. 



Very truly yours, 



Milton Whitney, 

 Chief of Bureau. 



Owing to the inability of the acting Chairman, IMr. G. 

 Waldo Smith, to remain longer at the meeting on account of 

 another engagement, Mr. Claflin was requested to and did 

 thereafter preside. 



Chairman : I am informed that we have with us Colonel 

 Gorgas, of the U. S. Army, and I know all present would be 

 pleased to hear from him. 



ANTI-MOSQUITO WORK IN HAVANA. 



Dr. W. C. Gorgas, 



Colonel and Assistant Surgeon-General, U. S. A. 



I came to-day for the purpose of learning, rather than for 

 the purpose of trying to say anything with regard to our work 

 at Havana. My experience has been altogether within the 

 tropics, but I can agree entirely with the general tenor of the 

 remarks made here this afternoon, namely, that mosquito work 

 is entirely practicable — that it is entirely possible to exter- 

 minate the mosquito in a limited area, such as a municipality 

 and its suburbs. Our work in Havana was from a slightly 

 different standpoint from that of most of the speakers this 

 afternoon. We did not care so much to get rid of mosquitoes 

 as to get rid of the diseases which they spread. While we 

 necessarily gave a great deal of attention to general mosquito 

 work, our greatest efforts were turned in the direction of 

 destroying infected mosquitoes and exterminating disease. 

 I suppose that in the year after the discovery by the Army 

 Medical Board that the mosquito was the means of spreading 



