114 PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL WORK AGAINST MOSQUITOES. 



CONCLUSION. 



It will thus appear that, considering the economic loss existing in 

 the United States through malaria, nothing like the competent work 

 has been done that should have been done, or really that should have 

 been done in the past eight years within the territorial limits of the 

 United States themselves. The United States Government has done 

 admirable work in Cuba, for another people, and it has done excellent 

 work in the Isthmian Canal Zone, but in its own home territory it has 

 done nothing. State governments have done almost nothing, if we 

 except the drainage work done in New Jersey. Malaria campaigns 

 have been local and on the whole very unsatisfactory. 



The writer in 1903, in a paper read before the First Anti-Mosquito 

 Convention in New York, December 16, after summarizing the work 

 which had already been done in different parts of the world, under 

 the title '^The World-Wide Crusade," said: 



The main incentive to all this world-wide movement has been the prevention of 

 disease. Probably nowhere else in the world has the motive of personal comfort 

 entered into the crusade as it has in the United States, and we have already carried 

 this aspect of the work much further than any other country. When we consider the 

 enormous sums of money spent in the United States for luxuries, how much more 

 should be spent for bare comfort and peace! 



Abundant evidence has been gained in the important work which has been done 

 here and elsewhere during the past two years to show that mosquitoes in any definite 

 region can b^ reduced to a point far below the danger line and quite within the comfort 

 line, and in many instances it has been shown that they can be exterminated, at least 

 for a time. This work will undoubtedly continue, but there are many communities 

 which need constant prodding. The organization of the antimosquito forces in this 

 convention which you are to hold will greatly stimulate public opinion, and will 

 induce many of the indifferent to take a more sanguine view of possibilities, and 

 perhaps more energetic action toward actual work. 



The same comparative indifference holds in other countries, and 

 often even where work is begun under good auspices and with excellent 

 indications it has failed of securing the best results. Maj. C. E. P. 

 Fowler, R. A. M. C, in his report on malarial investigations in 

 Mauritius, 1908, points out that on that island the great fault has 

 been in nonattention to small details, such as the formation of an 

 organization to deal with the neglected surface water found in the 

 small ditches along roadsides, in field drainage channels, and small 

 collections of water in holes in the ground, and to keep up the larger 

 work which has already been carried out. He states that no allow- 

 ance or forethought seems ever to have been expended on keeping the 

 work already carried through in proper working order. Where drains 

 or ditches had been laid down only a few months previously he found 

 them time after time choked with vegetation and forming excellent 

 places for Anopheles. The same thing was found in the rivers; the 

 government had cleared them, but it seems to have been nobody's 



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