ORGANIZATION FOR COMMUNITY WORK. 81 



involving over 25 square miles of territory along the north shore of 

 Long Island, the territory including several villages and niany country 

 homes of wealthy people. Following the first year's work of this 

 association a national antimosquito society was formed to encourage 

 just this kind of work, and this society has published instructions 

 and pamphlets of information which are at the disposal of all com- 

 munities desiring to enter upon the task of freeing themselves from 

 mosquitoes. 



Work of this kind carried on in Cuba, in Panama, and in various 

 English colonies will be referred to in later sections. All have been 

 well organized and actively carried forward and have been successful 

 in reducing the number of mosquitoes and in correspondingly reducing 

 such diseases as are carried by mosquitoes. 



Theoretically, community work should be done under official 

 auspices, and should be inaugurated by boards of health, but official 

 action is slow, even in the United States, where there is, as a rule, 

 less red tape than in older countries. Moreover, official action in 

 sanitary measures is often conservative, as well as slow. As alread}^ 

 pointed out, the health question is not the only one involved. Abun- 

 dance of mosquitoes means enormous economic loss to a community, 

 entirely aside from the important question of health, and individual 

 property owners realize this more than do official bodies. It is only 

 necessary to cite the increased value of real estate at summer resorts 

 where the mosquito scourge has been wiped out, and the great value 

 of reclaimed marsh land for manufacturing sites in the immediate 

 vicinity of great cities, or for agricultural purposes at a greater 

 distance from the great centers of population. An unusual reason for 

 anti-mosquito work developed a few years ago. A famous sports- 

 man, who was at the same time a captain of industry and had also 

 been a cabinet officer at Washington, spent large sums of money 

 in the vicinity of Sheepshead Bay, Long Island, to reduce the abun- 

 dance of mosquitoes, because his blooded race horses were losing 

 condition from their bites, although he had previously paid no atten- 

 tion to the mosquito problem from the standpoint of human health 

 and convenience or from the standpoint of the value of the real estate 

 in that vicinity, of which he was a large holder. 



In community work, therefore, as well as in most other measures 

 of reform, the organization of private citizens has usually been the 

 initial step. Many communities have their own village or town im- 

 provement associations, and many cities have their citizens' asso- 

 ciations constantly alert to discover needed reforms and improve- 

 ments and to bring them emphatically to the notice of their elected 

 representatives on the city council and to the mayor's appointees 

 on the board of health. It is through the mosquito committees of 

 such associations that very much of the work in this direction has 

 37713— Bull. 88—10 6 



