394 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



m 



minute animal parasites of the blood which produce malarial 

 fever are carried from man to man by the agency of a class of 

 gnats called Anophelines, which breed in small pools of water on 

 the ground. " Where such pools are numerous, in the hot 

 months of summer and autumn, as in marshy localities, the 

 insects generally abound ; and if a patient with the parasites in 

 his blood enters the locality, they become infected by biting him, 

 and then pass the microbes on to any healthy persons they may 

 feed upon subsequently." The suggestion is that the conqueror 

 of Greece was Malaria, not the Macedonian or the Eoman, but 

 the disease-carrying Anophelines — a mosquito sufficient to destroy 

 the mighty spirits of the Greeks and Eomans. The dire result 

 of persistent and intermittent malaria on the human system, the 

 human will and energy, is detailed by Dr. Ellett. 



This small book, therefore, raises a question which is second 

 to none in human interest, and if its argument is accepted, then 

 ,+i-~ mightiest civilizations that the world has produced may be 

 'ered by the agency of a horde, not of barbarians, but 

 Oi ^cts — humble dipterons — gnats or mosquitoes, as one may 

 pre±- ■> call them — the Anophelines of entomology. This, 

 indeed, s a romance in zoology : oh, that it might have been 

 suggested to Gibbon and described in his immortal prose ! 



