106 PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL WORK AGAINST MOSQUITOES. 



not reached success, through indifference on the part of city councils 

 or other bodies controlling public funds. Many health officers them- 

 selves have seemed indifferent on this subject. In some localities citi- 

 zens' associations, civic improvement societies, and women's clubs 

 have made efforts to improve the situation. Good work was done 

 by such an orgainzation in South Orange, N. J., and instances of this 

 kind are scattered here and there at very long intervals over the 

 country, but these efforts as a rule were at first spasmodic and only 

 temporary in their effects. 



The city of Baltimore offers an excellent example of what we have 

 just stated. It was early shown that a very large part of the mosquito 

 supply could easily be handled, and there were not lacking intelligent 

 and enterprising citizens who, year after year in the public press and 

 before the board of health and the city council, continually agitated 

 the subject of antimosquito work. Finally in 1907 Mr. George 

 Stewart Brown, a member of the city council, succeeded in getting an 

 appropriation to start the work for that year. Much of this money 

 was expended in expensive advertising in the street cars, etc., but 

 the remainder was expended very efficiently, but necessarily with only 

 partial results, by organizing a gang of men to drain and fill up pools 

 in vacant lots around the suburbs. The next year the appropriation 

 was reduced, and only the gang of men was continued. During 1909 

 no appropriation was made, the gang of men was dropped, and the 

 whole question was abandoned. It should be stated, however, that 

 before the appropriation was made an ordinance was passed by the 

 city council requiring every householder to remove, screen with wire 

 netting, or keep covered with oil, all standing water on his premises, 

 but it seems that no real attempt was ever made to enforce this ordi- 

 nance. Of course such an attempt could hardly be successful at 

 first without the aid of a special appropriation for the purpose. At 

 the present time the ordinance seems to be a dead letter. 



It is true that even where not directed specifically against malaria, 

 but against the mosquito nuisance, the breeding places of Anopheles 

 are disposed of, and they are for the most part prevented from 

 breeding, together with the other species of mosquitoes, and for this 

 reason a little space will be devoted to some of the productive efforts 

 which have been made in the United States aside from those which 

 have already been considered at some length in the section on drain- 

 age and other neighboring sections. 



In the early days of antimosquito work in this country, 1901 and 

 1902, the rather rare citizens who appreciated the situation and who 

 did their best to stir up their communities to organized effort should 

 be mentioned, and among them we have specifically in mind Dr. 

 Albert F. Woldert, of Philadelphia and later of Texas; Dr. Henry 

 Skinner, of Philadelphia; Dr. H. A. Veazie and Dr. H. G. Beyer and 



