December 9, 1909] 



NA TURE 



159 



limes, Beauperthuy, in 1853, practically said the same 

 thing', and had he but had a disciple of the worth of 

 Koss the thiny would have been settled long ago, and 

 the gain to humanity have been the saving of millions 

 of lives. Unfortunately, neither he nor King nor Finlay 

 could prove the truth of their assertions, so it was 

 left for Manson to revive the view once again, and 

 this time at last a worker — Prof. Ross — came forward, 

 and by a brilliant piece of research work solved the 

 mystery once and for all. Long before this, Manson 

 had also shown that the Filaria baiicrofti underwent 

 a metamorphosis or development in the tissues of a 

 mosquito, and Low had subsequently proved — not 

 Manson, as the author erroneously states on p. 36 

 — that after this development was complete, the para- 

 -sites found their way into the proboscis, and so got 

 back to man when the insect bit again. 



samples of what may be done. He has complained at 

 times of the slowness with which this new sanitation 

 has moved in some of the British Colonies, and cer- 

 tainly, as compared with American dependencies, it 

 has been slow; but now, as chapters viii. and xiv. of 

 "Mosquito or Man?" show, the movement is ad- 

 vancing, most of the West Indian islands, terrified by 

 the fear of yellow fever, the scourge of these parts, 

 having now got definite ordinances and regulations 

 dealing- with the question of breeding grounds of 

 mosquitoes. 



The historical survey of yellow fever contained in 

 chapter xi. gives an idea of what these places were 

 like in the old days, Fergusson telling how 1500 

 soldiers had perished in one epidemic, while in another 

 instance the Secretary for ^^'ar in England wanted to 

 know from the Governor of British Guiana whv in 



The .\mericans in H.ivnna, profiting by Ross's work 

 on malaria in the mosquito, tried mosquitoes for 

 vellow fever, and bv a series of experiments proved 

 that a mosquito, the Stegomyia calopus, is the 

 sole agent in the transmission of this disease. Here, 

 then, were three of the most important tropical dis- 

 eases clearly proved to be carried by mosquitoes, and, 

 the cause having been ascertained, there only remained 

 the question of prevention. How difilcult it is to break 

 down old traditions, and the antagonism that was dis- 

 plaved to the men of science who were sent out to 

 preach the new doctrines are well brought out in 

 chapter iii. ; even to the present day there are members 

 of the medical profession who disbelieve in the mos- 

 quito, vide p. 118. Ross at once, after his researches 

 on the development of the malarial parasite in the 

 mosquito, advocated a w.ir against these insects as 

 being the rational method of cutting the cycle and 

 stamping out the disease, and his original campaigns 

 and subsequent ones — Ismailia, for example — are 

 NO. 2093, ■^'OL. 82] 



a few months 6q per cent, of the white troops had 

 perished. The churchyards of Barbados and the other 

 islands are full of the bones of the victims, and it is 

 said of the slopes of the Morne in St. Lucia that there 

 is not a square yard without the remains of a soldier 

 under it, more being there from the results of yellow 

 fever than from the bullets of the enemy. Now what 

 do we find? Let us refer to chapter xiv., which con- 

 tains an account of the anti-yellow fever campaign in 

 Havana, igoo. .As .Sir Rubert says, " This will 

 alwavs remain one of the first and one of the greatest 

 examples of what has been done to stamp out a 

 disease by concerted intelligent action, and using the 

 latest and most modern weapons. \A'hen the American 

 Government took over the administration of Cuba, 

 one of the first things to be done was to make 

 Havana a livable place. Hitherto it had been notor- 

 iously unhealthy, 35,952 persons perishing of yellow 

 fever between the years 1853-1900, this being equiva- 

 lent to 754 a year, 64 a month, or to 2 deaths a day; 



