REMEDIES FOR MOSQUITO BITES. 41 



destroyed that the inmates of the house suffered no more. Mr. 

 Lefroy goes on to say: 



I am not prepared to recommend this as a universal remedy. It must be sensibly- 

 used; a small amount of personal effort in teaching a servant is necessary at first. 

 But where mosquitoes are a plague, especially to little children, the housekeeper's 

 thirst for the blood of the mosquitoes may rise to so great a pitch that she will welcome 

 this device and take a delight (as we do) in counting the corpses daily. 



An interesting homemade apparatus in common use in many parts 

 of the United States is very convenient and effective. It consists of 

 a tin cup or of a can cover nailed to the end of a long stick in such 

 a way that a spoonful or so of kerosene can be placed in the cup, 

 which may then, by means of the stick, be pressed up to the ceiling 

 so as to inclose one mosquito after another. When pressed up 

 in this w^ay the captured mosquito will attempt to fly and be caught 

 in the kerosene. By this method perhaps the majority of the mos- 

 quitoes in a given bedroom — certainly all those resting on the ceiling — 

 can be caught before one goes to bed. 



REMEDIES FOR MOSQUITO BITES. 



It must have been the experience of most people that ordinarily 

 little swelling and irritation result from the puncture of a mosquito 

 where there has been no scratching or rubbing of the part. But 

 individuals vary greatly in this respect, and it is undoubtedly true 

 that not only do different species of mosquitoes vary in their effect, 

 but that different individuals of the same species may also vary. 

 The application of household ammonia has been found by many to 

 give relief, and alcohol is also said to stop the irritation. Dr. E. O. 

 Peck, of Morristown, N. J., finds glycerin a sovereign remedy. Touch 

 the bite with glycerin and in a few minutes the pain is gone. Dr. 

 Charles A. Nash, of New York City, marks the puncture with a lump 

 of indigo and states that this instantly stops the irritation, no matter 

 whether the application is made immediately or after the lapse of a 

 day or so. The most satisfactory remedy known to the writer from 

 his own personal experience has been moist soap. Wet the end of a 

 piece of ordinary toilet soap and rub it gently on the puncture and 

 speedily the irritation will pass away. Mr. Charles Stevenson, of 

 Montreal, writing to the Canadian Entomologist in September, 1901, 

 stated that he had found naphthaline moth balls to afford immediate 

 relief from the bites of dangerous Diptera, including mosquitoes, and 

 that a friend of his had used it successfully on flea-bites. He advises 

 rubbing the moth ball on the affected part for a few minutes. Napth- 

 thaline is also recommended by Professor Boges, director of the na- 

 tional board of health at Buenos Aires. 



lodin is frequently recommended for this purpose, and a note in a 

 recent number of the Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 



