Mabch 9, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



381 



reputation who devotes many pages of this 

 report to the mosquito question. 



And in 1904, the same engineer reports 

 on the improvement of another river, and 

 gives prime attention to the results of in- 

 vestigations by the scientific experts from 

 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

 Based on their reports, he is led to state: 



The results of this inquiry were startling. 

 Every physician who was consulted testified that 

 malarial disease was already prevalent and that 

 it was apparently increasing and slowly extending. 



He says: 



I was thus obliged at the outset to face a great 

 sanitary problem which for the time overshadowed 

 the other studies, for questions of public health 

 are paramount and should have precedence over 

 landscape design and facilities for brick-making 

 or maket gardening. 



AVe may interject just here, that when 

 health and all improvements go together, 

 as can be planned, then is the greatest good 

 accomplished. The experts speak of 700 

 acres of a fresh pond marsh section (300 

 of which are constantly wet and soggy) 

 where 'physicians report that every person 

 in every house has had the fever,' and 

 many of them state that this is 'the most 

 dangerous section in twenty-five miles.' 

 While the poor who live in this swampy 

 territory were mostly affected, the report 

 shows the disease spreading into the best 

 districts where it is hilly. 



These lines of investigation and the re- 

 sults are in exact conformity to the work 

 done and reported upon by the North Shore 

 Improvement Association of Long Island, 

 some years previously. And it is most en- 

 couraging that engineering works are now 

 being undertaken with such a strong appre- 

 ciation of the importance of the mosquito 

 question. 



Landscape architects are seeking inform- 

 ing literature and are studying the subject 

 and discovering that their profession also 

 can materially aid the crusade and are 



recommending plans with a view to this 

 question. 



These two professions have been sadly 

 blind to their opportunities for good. Not 

 only has their work been simply negative — 

 that was bad enough with their oppor- 

 tunities—but they have actually aided 

 breeding in most cases. Within a few days 

 the speaker has interested an owner in a 

 badly infested home-site who has been 

 spending thousands of dollars in following 

 the plans of eminent landscape architects 

 as to the lay-out of the wide lawns in front 

 of his dwelling, while just in the woods be- 

 hind there has existed for ages and still ex- 

 ists a breeding place extensive enough to 

 ruin the pleasure which his home should 

 yield him; and a surplus of pests to curse 

 his neighbors. Now, this man is moving 

 vigorously to get rid of this pest place, not 

 that it has not been known heretofore that 

 mosquitoes would breed in such places, but 

 solely because it has been demonstrated that 

 such work is entirely practical and certainly 

 is highly desirable for comfort, for health, 

 for increase in the value of his property 

 and in the vast improvement to scenic 

 effects. This is simply a case of neglecting 

 a grand opportunity, but when these pro- 

 fessions actually produce breeding grounds, 

 their acts become a positive wrong to the 

 public. 



A gentleman of large means, recently 

 met, has been encouraged to work on these 

 lines on his vast property and now assures- 

 the speaker that he considers the question 

 one of the most far-reaching before the 

 people. This we have been endeavoring to 

 show for nearly a decade. He feels that 

 no money he is spending on roads and other 

 improvements will pay him better. He 

 also assures us that in the immediate 

 vicinity where he has done work, which 

 this crusade encouraged, he plainly notices 

 a great difference in the number of pests 



