Mosquitos and Yellow Fever 539 



from established in importance, it may be classified as an 

 interesting member of the colon group of bacilli. 



It would seem, from a careful consideration of the recent 

 literature, that Havelburg had very little ground for con- 

 sidering his bacillus specific, that it is scarcely possible for 

 Sternberg to establish the identity of Bacillus x with Bacillus 

 icteroides, and that none of these organisms are at all likely 

 to be of etiological importance in yellow fever. 



MOSQUITOS AND YELLOW FEVER. 



Reed, Carroll, Agramonte,* and Lazear, constituting a 

 Board of Medical Officers " for the purpose of pursuing scien- 

 tific investigations with reference to the acute infectious dis- 

 eases prevalent on the island of Cuba," began their work in 

 1900, at Havana, by a careful investigation of the relationship 

 of Bacillus icteroides to yellow fever. By a most careful tech- 

 nic they withdrew and examined the blood from the veins of 

 the elbow of 1 8 cases of yellow fever, making 48 separate ex- 

 aminations on different days of the disease, and preparing 

 115 bouillon cultures and 18 agar plates, every examination 

 being negative so far as Bacillus icteroides was concerned. 

 They were entirely unable to confirm the findings of Wasdin 

 and Geddings, that Bacillus icteroides was present in blood 

 obtained from the ear in 13 out of 14 cases, and concluded 

 that both Sanarelli and Wasdin and Geddings were mistaken 

 in their deductions. 



In lieu of the remarkably interesting discoveries of Ronald 

 Ross concerning the relation of the mosquito to malarial in- 

 fection, the commissioners, remembering the theory of 

 Finlay,f who published in 1881 an experimental research 

 showing that mosquitos spread the infection of yellow fever, 

 and the interesting and valuable observations of Carter J 

 upon the interval between infecting and secondary cases of 

 yellow fever, turned their attention to the mosquito. Secur- 

 ing mosquitos from Finlay and continuing the work where 

 he had left it, they found that when mosquitos (Stegomyia 

 fasciata) were permitted to bite patients suffering from 

 yellow fever, after an interval of about twelve days 

 they became able to impart yellow fever with their bites. 

 This infectious character of the bite, having once de- 



* " Phila. Med. Jour.," Oct. 27, 1900. 



t "Annales de la Real Academia," vol. xvm, 1881, pp. 147-169. 



J"New Orleans Med. Jour.," May, 1900. 



