NECESSITY OF EXACT FUMIGATION 149 



worked with culicides know tliat the quantities of 

 materials to be used must be specified, the sealing must 

 be complete, and the exposure a definite time ; that a 

 little practice is necessary, and that tobacco leaves are 

 not used because it is exceedingly difficult to fire them, 

 that special apparatus is necessary, and that the smell 

 penetrates everything. I therefore recommend that 

 the district authorities be given powers to execute 

 fumigation in the houses surrounding the infected 

 house, and that the distance be not specified, but that 

 this be left to the discretion of the authority acting on 

 the advice of the medical officer. 



Whilst I am of opinion that the fumigation of an 

 infected house and the houses surrounding should be 

 carried out by the health authorities, I think that the 

 inhabitants of the town should be encouraged to 

 fumigate their houses in a systematic and scientific 

 manner, and not to rely on carrying a little insect 

 powder alight on a shovel through the rooms, which 

 is as effective as the old native plan, still adopted in 

 some places, of lighting bonfires in the streets. For 

 that end I think that it would be of adv^antage if the 

 District Board would undertake for a nominal fee the 

 fumigation of houses when they were applied to. If 

 the camphor-carbolic compound is used, householders 

 would be distinct gainers, as moths and objectionable 

 vermin would be killed, and there would be no damage 

 to furniture or clothes by either smell, smoke, smuts 

 or corrosion. 



