38 THOMPSON YATES AND JOHNSTON LABORATORIES REPORT 
breed many mosquitoes. Such streets and compounds urgently require attention, and 
I would specially mention in this connexion Albion Place, Prescot Street, Perseverance 
Street, and other streets around Box Bar. The natives themselves in these districts 
could do a great deal by raising the level of their compounds by the deposition of \ 
sand and shells, indeed, some of the compounds have been raised in this way with 
beneficial effects. There is one small swamp, namely, that behind Government House 
and the hospital, which urgently requires filling in, because in this neighbourhood a 
good number of Europeans are stationed, and it is from this swamp that they obtain 
the majority of the mosquitoes occurring in their houses. 
To carry out the above suggested measures of dealing with mosquito breeding- 
places in Bathurst, it will be necessary in the first instance to appoint a small 
permanent sanitary staff for the purpose, whose sole work would be to destroy • 
existing breeding-places and to prevent their recurrence. The sanitary staff should 
be under the control of the sanitary board, and its movements directed by the 
colonial surgeon ; it should at least consist of one inspector having a good know- 
ledge of the mosquito, its larva, and its breeding-places ; under him a small gang of 
workmen, who could easily be taught to distinguish mosquito larva, and a cart for the 
removal of rubbish, tins, etc., from the various compounds would be required. The 
men, besides this work, would be employed in filling up holes and depressions, 
brushing out drains, and applying culicicides when required. It is especially necessary 
that such an inspector should understand when and where culicicides ought to be 
employed. Before any systematic work is undertaken, a preliminary removal of 
rubbish from houses and compounds and factory yards is essential. The rubbish so 
collected, which consists of old tins, bottles, iron pots, etc., will be of some value, as 
it can be utilized to fill up hollows and pools occurring throughout the town. After 
this preliminary removal, the work of the sanitary inspector will be : — 
1. A systematic weekly inspection of all houses and compounds, for the 
purpose of searching out and dealing with breeding-places and pre- 
venting the accumulation of old tins, etc. 
2. Systematic inspection of the street drains and boats on the foreshore. 
3. Similar systematic inspection for natural breeding-places round the 
margins of the swamps. 
Many of the breeding-places found in this way can be immediately destroyed 
by the inspector by one or more of the methods described above, others more difficult 
to deal with would have to be reported to the colonial surgeon. 
The work of the anti-mosquito staff will naturally vary according to the 
season of the year. The inspection of yards and compounds must necessarily go on 
week by week all the year round, as mosquitoes are breeding in these places at all 
seasons of the year. A great deal of information will have to be obtained by the 
preliminary inspection as to which compounds are the most productive of mosquitoes, 
