26 PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL WORK AGAINST MOSQUITOES. 



toes. An effort was made to determine the plant, and Mr. W. E. 

 SafTord searched the literature of oriental economic botany without 

 finding anything corresponding to it. He found that in the East 

 Indies there is a Verbascum or mullein called "phul," the seeds of 

 which are supposed to be narcotic, and the leaves used like those of 

 tobacco. The leaves of this plant, although not good for general 

 forage, are eaten by camels and goats. Assuming that this is the 

 plant mentioned by the newspapers, there is nothing in the economic 

 literature concerning its use as a mosquito deterrent. 



Another plant which is said to act as a deterrent is a lavender known 

 as Ocimum viride, a perennial which grows from 3 to 6 feet in height 

 and occurs from Senegambia southward to Angola. Mr. A. E. Ship- 

 ley a states that Major Burdon, resident of the Nupe Province, 

 northern Nigeria, had given him the following account of the plant: 



A fragment of what turned out to be Ocimum viride was given me in August last at 

 Lokoja, northern Nigeria, by Capt. II. D. Larymore, C. M. G., R. A., resident of the 

 Kabba Province. Capt. Larymore's notice had been drawn to the plant by a native 

 living in a low-lying part of the native town at Lokoja, who had told him that the 

 natives suffered very little from the swarms of mosquitoes which existed in that part, 

 as they protected themselves from them by the use of this plant. 



Capt. Larymore made inquiries and obtained a few specimens of the plant, which 

 grows wild, though not very abundantly, in the neighborhood of Lokoja. These 

 specimens he planted in pots and boxes and kept in and about his house. The speci- 

 mens I saw were about the size of a geranium. 



He informed me that the presence of one of these plants in a room undoubtedly 

 drove the mosquitoes out, and that by placing three or four of the plants around his 

 bed at night he was able to sleep unmolested without using a mosquito net. This 

 is very strong testimony to the efficacy of the plant, for the house in which Capt. 

 Larymore was living is, as I had cause to know well in former years, infested with 

 mosquitoes. 



Mr. Shipley further states that E. M. Holmes in " Notes on the 

 Medicinal Plants of Liberia" records that when chewed or rubbed 

 the leaves of 0. viride give off a strong odor of lemon tlryme, and 

 mentions that Doctor Roberts, of Liberia, entirely substituted the 

 use of the plant for that of .quinine in cases of fever of all kinds, 

 giving it in the form of an infusion. 



Goeldi, in Brazil, has experimented with Ocimum minimum without 

 the slightest beneficial result. He also tested Carica papaya, a plant 

 which has a similar reputation, but also without beneficial result. 

 An account of the Sergents' experiments with the latter plant has 

 just been given under the heading of the castor-oil plant. 



Mr. Shipley's article in the Tropical Agriculturist was reprinted in 

 the British Medical Journal and was quoted in many other periodicals, 

 and in consequence many requests for seeds of Ocimum viride were 

 received at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew from many parts of 

 the world. About this time a report was received from Dr. W. T. 



a The Tropical Agriculturist, February 2, 1903, pp. 555-556. 



