88 N. J. Mosquito Extermination Association 



not to realize our solemn duty to re-examine into the foundations 

 of all this sort of off-hand public health activities, and perhaps 

 adopt a totally different line of procedure to more effectively 

 safe-guard the interests of the people in the future against such 

 lamentable and sorrowful occurrences. 



One of the means to accomplish this is a different method of 

 health education. Suppose, for illustration, that the mosquito 

 problem and the mialarial problem were made a part of two or 

 three years' teaching. It is all that is necessary on every primer 

 or on every first reader. What a vast amount of good knowledge the 

 child will acquire in a simple, effective way^ In England, when 

 this malaria question broke out, the government utilized to the 

 fullest extent the Natural History Society throughout England to 

 collect the mosquito and identify the species. If we had such natural 

 history societies among our children — call them nature study so- 

 cieties, if you please — but every child should know more or less about 

 the insect life of the community, and, broadly speaking, the major 

 portion of all our epidemic diseases are insect borne. 



Now if those are the invisible foes of our life, as the little 

 lady said, is it not our duty to fight those with all of our might 

 as effectively as we have fought the visible and more formidable 

 foes that have faced us on the other side? In England they 

 realize a principle which as yet has ^hardly gained current ac- 

 ceptance in this country: namely, that any effective anti-malaria 

 campaign must rest upon an entomological basis, and they place the 

 entomologist first and the doctor last. And I am firmly of the ♦ 

 opinion that until we get rid of the idea that the doctor is the 

 guardian of the public health or responsible for individual health 

 and well-being, we shall never get anywhere in our public health 

 campaiign, including malaria eradication, and that is primarily 

 an entomological question. If you don't know the species you 

 are dealing with you cannot effectively apply the measures that 

 must follow; and if you do not know how you are succeeding in 

 eradicating different species of mosquitoes you cannot be sure of 

 the fact that you are going to eradicate malaria successfully. And 

 I, therefore, would like to leave with you the thought that on 

 every occasion, to emphasize that this is primarily a lay problem 

 and not a medical problem. We are primarily concerned with 

 mosquito extermination rather than with malaria eradication. Just 



