320 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Nov 



Mr. H. J. Elwes, calls attention now to the necessity of 

 finding- out under what conditions mosquitoes do not pro- 

 duce malaria, and mentions that whilst in certain districts 

 in India he escaped malaria by protecting himself with a 

 mosquito curtain, whilst other members of his party who 

 omitted these precautions were attacked, yet in other dis- 

 tricts where mosquitoes abound malaria is almost un- 

 known,and these precautions were unnecessary. Amongst 

 recent literature dealing with the subject we may men- 

 tion a paper on the life-histories of mosquitoes of the Unit- 

 ed States, published in one of the Bulletins of the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, and contributed by Dr. L. 0. 

 Howard, IT. S. entomologist. Descriptions, with illustra- 

 tions, are given of all the members of the group met with 

 in the United States, with especial reference to members 

 of the genus Anopheles, to which suspicion most strong- 

 ly points. Dr. Howard advocates the use of kerosene for 

 the destruction of the larva, and calls attention also to 

 the agency of fish in this connection. The July number 

 of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science con- 

 tains also a number of plates and diagrams by Major Ross 

 and Mr. R. Fielding Ould, of the Liverpool School of 

 Tropical Medicine, illustrating the life-history of the par- 

 asites of malaria. Before leaving the subject we may men- 

 tion that the second malarial expedition from Liverpool 

 has telegraphed home from Bonny, in Nigeria, news of 

 the discovery of another parasite, found in the proboscis 

 of mosquitoes, which causes elephantiasis. This disease 

 is a horrib scourge to millions of natives in tropical coun- 

 tries, and is due to a small worm which lives in the lym- 

 phatic vessels. We understand that the discovery has 

 been simultaneously made in England by Dr. Low, and in 

 India by Captain James. 



Mosquitos and Malaria. — Professor B. Grassi dis- 

 cusses the observations of Koch in a recent paper pub- 

 lished in Italy. He does not consider they have made any 



