INSECTS 51 



months these men demonstrated conclusively that this plague 

 disease of the tropics and of our southern states can, so far as we 

 know, be communicated only through the agency of the Stegomyia 

 mosquito. 



This commission, believing in the mosquito theory, at once began 

 experiments to demonstrate its truth. One of the members, Dr. 



FIG. 34. Dr. Walter Reed. 



Lazear (Fig. 35), permitted a mosquito to bite him ; a few days later 

 he contracted the disease and died. The inscription on a tablet 

 erected in his memory reads as follows : " With more than the 

 courage and devotion of the soldier, he risked and lost his life to 



