86 PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL WORK AGAINST MOSQUITOES. 



places. Extermination, in his opinion, will exterminate just as far 

 as the intelligent landowner is willing to carry it, but that it can not 

 be done once and for all any more than weeding a garden or the 

 cropping of a lawn can be done once and for all. He concludes his 

 paper with the following words : 



So far as my experience goes, it has been demonstrated that mosquitoes can be as 

 completely exterminated in any locality as dirt can be swept from a building, or as 

 weeds from a walk, with the possible exception of Culex sollicitans, and with the exer- 

 cise of no more intelligence and much less labor than is required in the performance 

 of many domestic duties. My experience would lead me to conclude that if mos- 

 quitoes continue to exist in any locality it is because the people are too indifferent 

 to the nuisance to take the trouble to be rid of it. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERESTING CHILDREN. 



Under the general head of '^ Remedies" we have mentioned the 

 efforts made by Professor Hodge, in Worcester, Mass., to interest the 

 school children of the city in the search for mosquito breeding places. 

 This must have been in 1901-2. But the most serious and pro- 

 ductive effort seems to have been made at San Antonio, Tex., a 

 year or so later, at the initiative of Dr. J. S. Lankford, of that city. 



In November, 1903, there were cases of yellow fever in San Anto- 

 nio which caused several deaths, and an inexcusable interruption of 

 commerce that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the effort 

 to allay the panic, the existence of yellow fever was denied, not only 

 by persons having business interests in the city, but by many medical 

 men as well. Very many adults not only denied the existence of the 

 fever in the city, but denied the relation between the mosquitoes and 

 the fever. Perhaps the majority of the adults seemed too old to 

 learn; and to the enlightened physicians it appeared that it was 

 impossible to begin education at the wrong end of life. 



The chairman of the sanitary committee of the school board 

 (Doctor Lankford) grasped the happy idea that if the children were 

 properly educated, sanitary matters in the future would be much 

 better attended to. He suggested to the board that it would be 

 valuable to educate all of the school children of the city in prophy- 

 laxis and make sanitarians out of them all. The school board heart- 

 ily approved of the proposition, and the campaign was at once begun 

 to educate the children on the subject of Insects as Disease Carriers. 

 The best recent medical literature on the subject was procured and 

 furnished to the teachers, and a circular letter was sent to them out- 

 lining a proposed course and offering a cash prize for the best model 

 lesson on the subject. Teachers became deeply interested in the 

 subject. A crude aquarium, with eggs and wrigglers, was kept in 

 every schoolroom, where the pupils could watch them develop; and 

 large magnifying glasses were furnished in order that they might 

 study to better advantage. The children were encouraged to make 



