BEELZEBUB 173 



similarly conveyed by Amblyomma hebrceum, the Bont 

 tick, and many farmers accuse Ixodes pilosus of causing 

 the well-known paralysis from which sheep suffer in 

 the early autumn ; and there are many others, diseases 

 such as the chicken disease of Brazil, which is so fatal 

 to poultry yards, and which is conveyed by the Argas 

 persicus. 



I will not weary you with more diseases. I think I 

 have said enough to show that within the last few 

 years a flood of light has been thrown upon diseases 

 not only of man and his domestic animals, but upon 

 such insignificant creatures as the mosquito and the 

 tick. I have tried to show how these diseases inter- 

 act, and how both hosts are absolutely essential to the 

 disease. We can now to a great extent control these 

 troubles ; the old idea that there is something un- 

 healthy in the climate of the Tropics is giving way 

 to the idea that the unhealthiness is due to definite 

 organisms conveyed into man by definite biting 

 insects. We have at last, I think, an explanation of 

 why Beelzebub was called the Lord of Flies. 



