40 AMERICAN MUSEUM (HIDE LEAFLETS 



Park in the Borough of the Bronx, New York City, in 1000. A search 



revealed specimens of Anopheles macidivennis in every 



Prevalence . 



of Malaria house and generally in the sleeping quarters wherever the 



disease occurred. In tropical climates, the natives, who 



often live in dark and poorly ventilated houses, are the chief sufferers, 



and we learn that, in India and Africa, from 20 to 100 per cent of the 



children of the native villages, are affected by malaria. 1 In the southern 



States of our own country malaria is a severe scourge among the negroes, 



and probably for the same reasons as in India. 



The Malaria Mosquito seldom rises even to the second story of a 

 house, and it is a well known fact, that persons whose sleeping quarters 

 are high above the ground are seldom attacked by the disease. Since the 

 mosquito is a poor flyer and does not readily rise high above the ground, 

 and since it avoids an abundance of light, its absence from the upper 

 stories of a building is easily understood. 



In general, high altitudes insure a freedom from the Malaria Mosquito 

 and from malaria, but there are some notable exceptions, and malaria 

 lias been recorded as endemic in certain regions in India where the eleva- 

 tion is four to five thousand feet above sea-level. 



Yellow Fever. 



The role which mosquitoes play in the dissemination of yellow fever 

 was discovered in 1SS1 by Dr. Finlay of Havana, and communicated by 

 him in papers on the "Natural History of Yellow Fever" (1881-1886). 

 A suspicion that some insects were concerned in the spreading of the 

 disease had been expressed as early as 1S4X by Xott, a physician of Mo- 

 bile, Ala. Not much credence, however, was given to Finlay's discovery 

 till it had been firmly established that malaria was transmitted by mos- 

 quitoes; and the real experimental proof of transmission by the mosquito 

 Mosquitoes was furnished by a commission of United States Army 



and Yellow surgeons which was sent to Cuba by former Surgeon- 

 ever General Sternberg for the purpose of carrying on investi- 



gations. The findings of the commission, which was in charge of 

 Major Reed, I". S. A., positively demonstrated that yellow fever was com- 

 municated by the bite of a " Yellow Fever Mosquito" (Stegomyia fasciata 



'Stephens and Christopher in Reports to the Malaria Committee of the Royal 

 Society. Sixth series, March. 1902, p. '_'. and elsewhere. 



