184 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
return of each summer, especially when combined with the fact that of the 
23,087 flies collected by Dr. L. O. Howard from dining-rooms in different 
parts of the United States, 22,808 were of this typhoid species. 
To screen our windows is but a partial remedy against the scourge, for 
shops from which food comes may remain unscreened. To rid ourselves of 
the fly we must do away with its breeding places; there is no other way. 
This means work for the Board of Health in every city, and codperation 
of all members of communities everywhere, but it is the one road toward 
protection from fly-born sickness and death. 
The Malaria Mosquito, Anopheles maculipennis, is likely to insert the 
germs of malaria when it pierces the skin, and that it is only the females that 
“bite,” is no consolation since their number is legion. There are 15,000 
deaths annually from malarial fevers in the United States, yet this disease 
can be spread only through the agency of this insect. All mosquitoes, unless 
it be the striped-legged form of the seashore, should be looked upon with 
suspicion, for the points of difference between the malarial and non-malarial 
forms are too minute to be of general help in distinguishing them. The 
ravages of the malaria mosquito can be checked, Just as can those of the 
typhoid fly, by getting rid of its breeding places. This work also must be 
communal, the method varying with the conditions. Swamps and pools 
should be drained whenever possible. Where draining is not practicable, 
they can be kept free from mosquito larvee by covering the water with a 
film of oil. The larvee coming to the surface to breathe cannot break 
through the film and so suffocate; however, as the oil evaporates rapidly, it 
must be renewed every week or two. Ponds, brooks and fountains may be 
kept relatively free by introducing goldfish or top minnows, if the banks 
have been cleared of weeds so that the fish can patrol the entire surface. 
Rain barrels and water tanks should be screened or stocked with fish; even 
tin cans and bottles which fill with water during rains may prove ruinous 
to the health of a community and should be buried or disposed of in some 
safe way. Much work has already been done in eliminating mosquitoes 
from infested regions, but — and this is the rock on which many mosquito 
campaigns have been wrecked — the action must be communal and com- 
pulsory, one ignorant or obstinate landowner easily making of no avail 
the work of a hundred. 
Frank E. Lutz 
