20 THE IMPORTANCE OF DOMESTIC MOSQUITOS 



an engineering workshop would suddenly have to 

 stop work ; the manager would growl, saying that it 

 was no good going on with his men sick : " I have 

 discharged one gang and have engaged another ; 

 but now they are sick too." 



This was " culex fever." Repeated attacks of 

 it rendered people pale and lifeless. The children 

 were stunted, anaemic, and unhealthy-looking. Men 

 were frequently out of work for days on this account, 

 and after several attacks their employers dis- 

 charged them. The men, being unemployed, wan- 

 dered about the quays and annoyed the passengers 

 they were forced to get a livelihood somehow. This 

 was the cause of Port Said's name. In these days 

 sick men are no use to any one anywhere. 



Then, what a pest mosquitos used to be at Port 

 Said ! Every one complained about them. We were 

 annoyed all day as well as all night. Even in the 

 winter the Culecines were a nuisance. Stegomyia 

 calopus hibernates in the cold, but Culex fatigans 

 is very troublesome. The clerks in some of the 

 offices were obliged to work under mosquito curtains, 

 suspending them from the gas brackets over their 

 desks. Native workmen in laundries covered their 

 naked ankles with paper to keep off mosquitos. 

 Passengers in the ships suffered too. The hotels and 

 residential houses and flats were rendered intolerable 

 in the evenings. Mosquitos followed one out on to 

 the verandas and even in the streets. After a 

 sleepless night one was pestered all day. The cause 

 of it all lay in the insanitary condition of the town. 



