384 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 584. 



come only to sparsely settled sections and 

 result in aiding comparatively limited areas 

 and valuations, the thought arises, why 

 should not some of these vast sums be used 

 in blessing the country by driving oiit the 

 mosquito and malaria and yellow fever, 

 bettering the condition of the less favored 

 people— for they suffer most— changing 

 marsh and swamp areas into places of fer- 

 tility, beauty and oftentimes into places of 

 pleasant habitation ? When it is considered 

 that such work is largely needed in close 

 centers of population where thousands will 

 be benefited instead of scores, and where 

 resultant increase of tax valuations will 

 shortly entirely repay cost, the urgency of 

 the subject as a public work is manifest. 

 This body and all others working for the 

 general good should state and reiterate this 

 position until we get public action. 



It has taken some years to get strength 

 enough in the idea to obtain appropriations, 

 but these are now coming in many places. 

 Numbers of cities and communities are 

 awakening and acting. The Department 

 of Health of the city of New York has 

 been expending this season in one borough 

 — Richmond— an appropriation of $17,000 

 under Dr. A. H. Doty, the health officer of 

 the port, and it is to be hoped the results 

 will encourage work in other boroughs. 

 But all public work particularly, we repeat, 

 should be done most thoroughly or the 

 press and people will raise such opposition 

 as to cause a set-back in the practical work 

 of a thoroughly scientific problem. 



The city of New York is also helpfully 

 acting in the reform by utilizing part of 

 its inorganic waste in filling in breeding 

 places instead of carrying it out to sea and 

 dumping it so that much floats back on to 

 adjacent shores. In the southern part of 

 the borough of Brooklyn, Coney Island 

 Creek is being filled in, which, guardedly 

 done, will prevent its waters from satu- 

 rating hundreds of acres of marsh land 



where mosquitoes are now famous. This 

 evil and this benefit were pointed out some 

 seasons ago when a crusade was initiated 

 there by the late Mr. "Wm. C. Whitney. 



Some two or three years ago we were 

 greatly encouraged in learning that the . 

 Italian government had made a contract 

 with some German capitalists to drain the 

 great marshes about Rome— to destroy the 

 breeding places of mosquitoes and thus 

 render the section healthy and inhabitable. 

 But it seems that this great improvement 

 and blessing to a race has been kept back 

 until now by the obstruction of a few 

 sporting noblemen (in title) who wished 

 to have the marshes left for their personal 

 pleasure. Now the press informs us the 

 work is to go forward and the promoters 

 are to be paid in hitherto worthless land. 

 What a suggestion for our country along 

 lines of marsh improvement and the ob- 

 struction met from personal interests of a 

 few seek pleasure or profit. 



The great benefits of mosquito extermi- 

 nation we feel, are to be accomplished by 

 a careful education of the public mind and 

 a judicious effort for laws and public ap- 

 propriations, by cooperation of general and 

 state governments, of cities and rural sec- 

 tions, of individuals and public men in a 

 short, strenuous campaign. What need of 

 taking decades in these moving times? 

 And it is on these lines that the American 

 Mosquito Extermination Society is earnest- 

 ly working, and I bespeak for it your influ- 

 ence and cooperation. 



It would take too much of your time to 

 speak of this phase— the basal work, edu- 

 cation — education of the public school chil- 

 dren of the country, the lawmakers, the 

 editors and press writers, the civic organ- 

 izations, the professions interested, the 

 great mass of the people. But this work 

 our society is striving to do and has its 

 members distributed well over America, to 

 whom our literature is scattered, and we 



