CHAPTER IV 



the follekunnees of the discoveries of the 

 :mosquito origin of diseases 



It is the rule that all great movements and disco\'eries 

 are heralded in by premonitory signs. In other words, 

 there are always " John the Baptists " who go before. 

 It is so with the discovery of mosquito-borne diseases. 

 In the last chapter I traced the theories that were held 

 about malaria and yellow fever, how malaria or marsh 

 fevers and yellow fever were attributed to miasms. 

 In this chapter I wish to record the opinions of those 

 who doubted this view, and thereby demonstrated 

 how far ahead of their time they really were. Mewed 

 in the light of what we know to-day, they were true 

 prophets. There appears strong e\'idence that the 

 danger of Hies and mosquitos was known in very early 

 times. Thus Sir Henry Blake, in speaking at a banquet 

 in connection with the I^iverpool School of Tropical 

 Medicine in 1908, mentioned how, when he was 

 Governor of Ceylon, he had been shown a medical work 

 written fourteen liimdred years ago, in which tlie 

 mosquito was stated to be a carrier of disease, and 

 malaria was described as being transmitted by flies 



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