PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL WORK AGAINST 

 MOSQUITOES. 



INTRODUCTION. 



For many centuries humanity has endured the annoyance of mos- 

 quitoes without making any intelHgent effort to prevent it except 

 in the use of smudges, preparations apphed to the skin, and in re- 

 moval from localities of abundance. And it is only within compara- 

 tively recent years that widespread community work against mos- 

 quitoes has been undertaken, this having resulted almost directly 

 from the discoveries concerning the carriage of disease by these 

 insects. 



As obvious a procedure as it might seem to be, the abolition of 

 mosquito-breeding places is a comparatively new idea. The treat- 

 ment of breeding places with oil to destroy the larval forms is, how- 

 ever, by no means recent. As early as 1812 the writer of a work 

 published in London entitled ^'Omniana or Horae Otiosiores" sug- 

 gested that by pouring oil upon water the number of mosquitoes 

 may be diminished. It is stated that in the middle of the nineteenth 

 century kerosene was used in France in this way, while in the French 

 quarter in New^ Orleans oil was placed in water tanks before the 

 civil war, the idea having possibly come from France to New Orleans 

 or vice versa. 



Another early recommendation of the use of oil was given by an 

 anonymous writer in the Magazin Pittoresque,*^ in an article on the 

 ' 'Mosquito and Its Metamorphoses." The phraseology translated 

 into English is as follows : 



When one has recognized that the ponds or ditches existing close to houses are 

 swarming with the larvae of mosquitoes, one can immediately destroy this dangerous 

 race by spreading on the surface a little oil, which extends in a very thin film and 

 prevents the little insects from coming up to breathe. This proceeding is especially 

 easy to put into practice upon the irrigating tanks in gardens, since it is in such places 

 that the greatest number of mosquitoes develop. 



Again, quite recently, Mr. John P. Fort, of Athens, Ga., has com- 

 municated to the writer that about the year 1854, while his father. 

 Dr. Thomlinson Fort, was physician to the penitentiary at Milledge- 

 ville, Ga., a place of about 2,000 people, the institution had become 

 so infested with mosquitoes as to cause much complaint. Doctor 



oVol. 15, pp. 178-182, 1846. 



