ERADICATION OF INSECT PESTS 231 



ance of measures to ensure the eleanliness of the 

 people, as, for example, by the anti-verminous Act. 

 Insects that can pass from person to person are 

 highly dangerous, and every endeavour should be made 

 to get rid of them. Further, as we have evidence 

 that relapsing fever was once, like plague, a disease 

 widely spread over the temperate as well as over the 

 tropical zones, and as we know that it still per- 

 sists in those districts where there is overcrowding, 

 so we must naturally come to the conclusion that 

 this disease is dying out as the result of civilisation 

 and its attendant sanitary reforms. It is, like plague 

 and yellow fever, being chased out of the world or 

 confined to smaller and smaller areas. What has been 

 accomplished in the case of relapsing fever and plague 

 should encourage man to redouble his energies to 

 finally stamp out yellow fever, malaria, and plague, 

 more especially now, as there is no excuse for their 

 existence seeing that we know precisely how to attack 

 them. In addition to the methods of general sanita- 

 tion, we have now specific weapons, and the world 

 should not rest content until these diseases are 

 absolutely eradicated. 



These are not theoretical considerations ; they are 

 eminently practical, as the history of the rise and fall 

 of disease has proved to us. To recapitulate, we 

 stated how only fifty years ago the mortality from 

 yellow fever in the West Indies reached 69 per cent, 

 amongst our garrisons. Plague was once the pestilence 

 of Europe. Cholera once swept over Europe and 

 many parts of the world. Small-pox was once much 



