51 



Remediex foi'l)ite>i. — Dv. E. O. Peck, of Morristown, N. J., wrote 

 to this oiEce last summer stating that he had found gl^a^erin a sover- 

 eign cure for the bites. Touch the bite with glj^cerin. and in a few 

 minutes the pain is gone. According to Dr. Peck it also took the 

 pain from bee stings. Dr. Charles A. Nash, of New York City, has 

 recentl}' informed the writer, bj' correspondence, that whenever a 

 mosquito bites him he rubs the spot and marks it with a lump of 

 indigo. This, he says, ''instantaneously renders the bite a])s()lutely 

 of no account," whether the application is made innnediateh', the next 

 day, or the day after. He has used it since 1878, and lives in a New 

 Jersey town where, he writes, "mosquitoes are a pest CA^ery j^ear." 

 He finds the same application to give relief from the stings of the 

 yellow jacket. Household ammonia has been found b}^ man}^ persons 

 to give relief. 



DESTRUCTION OF LARV^ AND ABOLITION OF BREEDING PLACES. 



The following paragraphs are quoted from the writer's article in 

 Bulletin No. tt: 



"Altogether the most satisfactory ways of fighting mosquitoes are 

 those which result in the destruction of the larvte or the abolition of 

 their breeding places. In not every locality are these measures feasi- 

 ble, but in man}" places there is absolutely no necessity for the 

 mosquito annoyance. The three main preventive measures are the 

 draining of breeding places, the introduction of small fish into fishless 

 breeding places, and the treatment of such pools with kerosene. 

 These are three alternatives, any one of which will l)e efficacious, and 

 any one of which may be used where there are reasons against the 

 trial of the others. 



''''Kerosene on hr ceding pools. — In 1892 the writer published the first 

 account of extensive out-of-doors experiments to determine the actual 

 effect upon the mosquitoes of a thin la3'er of kerosene upon the sur- 

 face of water in breeding pools and the relative amount to be used. 

 He showed the quantity of kerosene necessary for a given water sur- 

 face, and demonstrated further that not onl}^ are the larva? and pupae 

 thereby destroyed almost immediately, but that the female mosquitoes 

 are not deterred from attempting to oviposit upon the surface of the 

 water, and that they are thus destroyed in large numbers Ix'fore their 

 eggs are laid. He also showed approximately the length of time for 

 "^hich one such treatment would remain operative. No originality 

 was claimed for the suggestion, but only for the more or less exact 

 experimentation. The writer, himself, as earl}^ as 1867, had found 

 that kerosene would kill mosquito larva\ and the same knowledge was 

 probably put in practice, although without pul)!icity, in other parts of 

 the country. In fact, Mr. H. E. Weed states (Insect Life, Vol. VH, 



