226 THE HOUSE FLY DISEASE CARRIER 



couraged to make drawings on the blackboard of mos- 

 quitoes in all stages of development. Lessons were 

 given ; compositions were written on the subject ; com- 

 petitive examinations were held, and groups of boys 

 and girls were sent out with the teachers on searching 

 expeditions for the breeding places. 



Rivalry sprang up between the 10,000 public school 

 children in the city in finding and reporting to the 

 health office the greatest number of breeding places 

 found and destroyed. Records were kept on the black- 

 boards in the schools of the progress of the competi- 

 tion, and great enthusiasm was stirred up. In addition 

 to these measures a course of stereopticon lectures was 

 arranged, grouping the pupils in audiences of about 

 1,000, from the high school down, and in Doctor Lank- 

 ford's w r ords, "It was an inspiring sight to watch these 

 audiences of 1,000 children, thoughtful, still as death, 

 and staring with wide-open eyes at the wonders re- 

 vealed by the microscope. It seemed to me that in 

 bringing this great question of preventive medicine be- 

 fore public school children we had hit upon a power 

 for good that could scarcely be over-estimated." As 

 a result there was a decided diminution in the numbers 

 of mosquitoes in San Antonio. There was some oppo- 

 sition among the people, but the movement on the 

 whole was very popular, and the mortality of the city 

 from malarial trouble was reduced seventy-five per cent, 

 the first year after the work was begun, and in the 

 second year it was entirely eliminated from San An- 

 tonio! 



