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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 708 



species of insects, is expected to supply valu- 

 able information to scientific investigators and 

 to give guidance to the different administra- 

 tions, by indicating the lines of advance of 

 the disease and the districts which require 

 special protective measures. The duties of 

 the director of the bureau will for the present 

 be undertaken by Dr. A. G. Bagshawe, of the 

 Uganda Medical Staff. 



UJiAUPERTHUY ON MOSQUITO-BORN 

 DISEASES 



Dr. Agramonte, in an article quoted from 

 the Havana Cronica Medico by the British 

 Medical Journal, calls attention to the pioneer 

 work of Louis Daniel Beauperthuy, born in 

 Guadeloupe in 1808. Writing in the Gaceta 

 Oficial de Cttmand in May, 1853, Beauperthuy 

 says: 



To the work I undertook (health officer in a 

 yellow fever epidemic in Cumana) I brouglit the 

 knowledge gained during fourteen years' micro- 

 scopic observation of the blood and secretions in 

 every type ef fever. These observations were of 

 great service to me in recognizing the cause of 

 yellow fever and the fitting methods of combating 

 this terrible malady. Witli regard to my investi- 

 gations on the etiology of yellow fever I must 

 abstain for the present from making them public. 

 They form part of a prolonged study, the results 

 of which are facts so novel and so far removed 

 from all hitherto accepted doctrines that I ought 

 not to publish them without adducing fuller evi- 

 dence in support. Moreover, I am sending to the 

 AcadCmie de Paris a communication which con- 

 tains a summary of the observations 1 have made 

 up to the present, the object of which is to secure 

 the priority of my discoveries concerning the 

 cause of fevers in general. . . . 



The affection known as yellow fever or black 

 vomit is due to the same cause as that producing 

 intermittent fever. 



Yellow fever is in no way to be regarded as a 

 contagious disease. 



The disease develops itself . . . under condi- 

 tions which favor the development of mosquitos. 



The mosquito plunges its proboscis into the 

 skin . . . and introduces a poison which has prop- 

 erties akin to that of snake venom. It softens 

 the red blood corpuscles, causes their rupture . . . 

 and facilitates the mixing of the coloring matter 

 with the serum. 



The agents of this yellow fever infection are of 

 a considerable number of species, not all being of 

 equally lethal character. The zaiwudo boho, with 

 legs striped with white, may be regarded as more 

 or less the house-haimting kind. . . . 



Remittent, intermittent and pernicious fevers, 

 just like yellow fever, have as their cause an 

 animal, or vegeto-animal virus, the introduction 

 of which into the human body is brought about 

 by inoculation. 



Intermittent fevers are grave in proportion to 

 the prevalence of mos(iuitos, and disappear or lose 

 mudi of their severity in places which, by reason 

 of their elevation, have few of these insects. 



The expression "winged snakes" employed by 

 Herodotus is peculiarly applicable to the mos- 

 quito and the result of its bite on the human 

 organism. 



Marshes do not communicate to the atmosphere 

 anything more than humidity, and the small 

 amount of hydrogen they give off does not cause 

 in man the slightest indisposition in equatorial 

 and intertropical regions renowned for their un- 

 healthiness. Nor is it the putrescence of the 

 water that makes it unhealthy, but the presence 

 of mosquitos. 



It was to the Gaceta Oficial de Cumana that 

 Beauperthuy seems to have written most fully, 

 but he made more than one communication 

 to the Acadeniie des Sciences. One of these, 

 dated from Cumana, January 18, 1856, is en- 

 titled "Eesearches into the Cause of Asiatic 

 Cholera and into that of Yellow Fever and 

 Marsh Fever," and in this he says that as 

 early as 1839 his investigations in unhealthy 

 localities in South America had convinced him 

 that the so-called marsh fevers were due to a 

 vegeto-animal virus inoculated into man by 

 mosquitos. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 OxB'ORD TJniveksity has conferred its doc- 

 torate of science on Dr. F. Eaymond, of the 

 Ilopital de la Salpetriere, professor in the 

 University of Paris; J. J. Harris Teall, M.A., 

 F.R.S., director of H.M. Geological Survey; 

 and James Ward, ScD., fellow of Trinity 

 and professor of mental philosophy in Cam- 

 bridge University. 



Dr. Bihkkland, professor of physics at 

 Christiana, has been given the honorary 



