4/2 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



Hundreds of copies of this circular were distributed in South 

 Orange and the surrounding towns and hundreds more were 

 supphed to other communities and associations that asked for 

 them. In consequence many people have learned to see and rec- 

 ognize mosquito larvse who would never have, otherwise, asso- 

 ciated the squirming wrigglers with the annoying- mosquito and 

 where a mosquito breeding place is once recognized as such, few 

 persons will allow it to remain. 



At Monclair the matter was taken up by the Board of Health, 

 of which Mr. Horatio N. Parker was the Inspecting Officer. The 

 following record from Mr. Parker speaks for itself : 



MoNTCLAiR, N. ]., October 15th, 1904. 

 Professor John B. Smith. State Entomologist, Nezv Brimszvick, N. J.: 



Dear Sir — The progress of the anti-mosquito campaigns in Montclair are 

 recorded in the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth annual reports of the 

 Board of Health of the town. 



In the sixth and seventh annual reports, Marshall O. Leighton, under the 

 title "Malaria and Mosquitoes." discusses the problem in the following manner. 



MAf.ARIA AND MOSQUITOES. 



"During the summer of i8g8 inquiries were made concerning the existence 

 of malaria in Montclair. The physicians located here furnished lists of all 

 the cases of malaria which had occurred in their practice during the previous 

 six months, and for a considerable period thereafter supplemented these lists 

 from time to time with subsequent cases which came under their treatment. 

 In this way about 120 cases of malaria, clinically diagnosed, were located and 

 studied. As a whole the work was barren of important results, but it was 

 noticeable, when the cases were plotted upon a map of Montclair, that about 

 97 per cent, of them were in the vicinity of brooks running through the town, 

 or were clustered about the various ponds which are located within the town 

 limits. Indeed, so closely did the cases follow the various small streams that 

 in several cases the bends and curves in them were fairly outlined by the 

 plotted locations. 



At that time the true significance of the observation was not realized, and it 

 was concluded that the region bordering along the local brooks was, for some 

 reason, favorable to malaria cachexia. 



It was, however, only a short time after the close of this investigation that 

 the discoveries of Ross and Manson threw some light upon the subject. The 

 identification of the malarial Plasmodium (which had previously remained 

 undiscovered outside the human body) in the mosquito, of the genus 

 Anopheles, and its subsequent verification by some of the foremost scientists, 

 has led to a complete change of ideas in the medical profession concerning the 

 transmission of this disease. It was then realized that the extermination of 

 the mosquito would, to a large extent, if not entirely, result in the disease 

 inalaria becoming extinct. It was also recognized that the most likely method 

 ■of exterminating mosquitoes would be to apply to the quiescent waters, which 

 have long been known to be the breeding places of these insects, some agent 

 destructive to the larvae. One of these agents was known to be crude 

 petroleum. 



The investigation of malaria in Montclair, and its results as outlined above, 

 then assumed important significance. The brooks of Montclair, except imme- 

 diatelv after storms, are very sluggish and contain numerous quiet pools in 

 which mosquitoes may breed until interrupted by freshets. The ponds, although 

 very small, are also quiescent, and, in the light of these investigations of 



