DK. BEAUPERTIIUY 23 



or mosquitos. It will also be remembered that Hero- 

 dotus spoke of winged serpents. Beaiiperthuy argues 

 that this term is very applicable to mosquitos, whose 

 poisonous bite he compares in its effects on the human 

 body to that of tlie serpent's bite. The use of 

 mechanical protection against mosquitos also appears 

 to be a very ancient practice, the means adopted 

 consisting of either smearing the exposed parts with 

 pungent fats and oils, or more commonly by the use of 

 netting ; this is seen in the use of our common word 

 " canopy " {kmvcjxjj = gnat). 



Not until the nineteenth century, however, do we 

 find medical men directing their attention to the 

 mosquito, the common biting insect of the tropics. 

 We read that in 1848 Dr. Nott, of IMobile, Alabama, 

 published a work on yellow fever in which he uj^holds 

 the mosquito origin of yellow fever, and also surmises 

 that the mosquito of the lowlands may be the origin 

 of malarial fe\'er. But it is Dr. Beauperthuy whom we 

 must regard as the father of the doctrine of insect- 

 borne disease. 



" Louis Daniel Beauperthuy, Docteur en Medecine 

 des Facultes de Paris et de Caracas, naturaliste fran^ais 

 et micrographe," was born in Guadeloupe in 1803, 

 studied medicine in Paris, and graduated with dis- 

 tinction. He was a medical man with a very strong 

 biological trend, and was devoted to the use of tlie 

 microscope. In order to study a disease he would 

 follow it up, no matter in what country it broke out. 

 It was thus with yellow fever ; wherever an epidemic 

 of it occurred in the West Indian group, he set off to 



