SCOPE AND STATUS OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 17 



The relation of flies to cholera has been studied now with suffi- 

 cient care to warrant the belief that these insects are important 

 agents, if not the chief ones, by which this dread malady spreads. 

 Uffelman's experiment in which he obtained 10,500 colonies of the 

 cholera Spirillum from a fly confined with a culture of the organism, 

 and Macrae's tests of boiled milk exposed to flies in a jail at Gay a, 

 India, where cholera was present, are convincing to most minds as 

 to the pernicious part these insects take during cholera outbreaks. 



Flies are accused also of conveying tuberculosis by carrying Bacil- 

 lus tuberculosis from sputum to milk and other foods. At any rate 

 the bacilli have been found both in their excreta taken from walls 

 and in their alimentary canals. 



The part taken by fleas and other insects in conveying leprosy is 

 another subject well worthy of investigation by entomologists favor- 

 ably situated for the purpose. 



The spotted fever of Montana, known to be due to an organism 

 named by Doctors Wilson and Chowning Pyrosoma hominis, should 

 have attention from the entomological standpoint, since this organ- 

 ism is of the same nature as those causing malarial troubles, and 

 this points to an intermediate host,. in all probability an insect or 

 a tick. 



The relation between malaria and Anopheles macidipennis Meig. 

 is now very well established, but there are other related species and 

 genera, such as Myzomyia funesta Giles and Pyretophorus costalis 

 Loew of West Africa, known to carry the disease also, and it is not 

 at all improbable that still other insect agents may yet be discovered 

 in the United States or some of its possessions. Here, in these latter 

 especially, is an opportunity for the study of insects having to do 

 with disease that has never received the attention it deserves. 



Quite a good many other diseases are believed to be carried by 

 insects, but the instances given serve my purpose of pointing to the 

 work to be done. 



A great field for original work lies also in the study of insects 

 having to do with ailments of stock. We know much of the part 

 taken by Boophilus annulatus Say in conveying Texas fever. But 

 there are many things yet to be learned about the tick, and still more 

 to be made known concerning the life histories and habits of the 

 various insects associated in one way or another with domestic 

 animals, and very probably in some cases concerned with their dis- 

 eases. We are accustomed to leave this part of our territory to be 

 tilled by veterinarians, but in doing so are making them a gift of a 

 valuable part of our possessions. 

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