TRANSMISSION OF MALARIA BY ANOPHELES IN NORTH AMERICA 
115 
is evidently a good malarial carrier, though 
there is no record of experiments conducted 
with this form under the American name 
of “occidentalism 
a. Experimental infection. — P. vivax. 
Barber, Komp and King (1929) infected 
specimens of A. maculipennis collected in 
Dona Anna Co., New Mexico, with P. vivax. 
There are no adequate data for P. falci¬ 
parum and P. malariae. 
b. Infection in nature. Barber, Komp 
and King (1929), in northern New Mexico, 
dissected 669 A. maculipennis and found 2 
specimens, or 0.3 per cent, with oocysts in 
the mid gut. Barber and Forbrick (1933), 
in New Mexico, dissected 868 maculipennis 
and found 1.4 per cent infected. 
c. Epidemiological. Barber, Komp and 
King (1929) observed that in New Mexico 
A. maculipennis is undoubtedly an impor¬ 
tant vector of malaria. “It is one of the 
most common carriers of Europe and is 
considered an important vector in Cali¬ 
fornia.” Twinn (1931) listed A. macu¬ 
lipennis Mg. among the principal trouble¬ 
some mosquitoes of eastern Canada and 
stated that it is a dangerous vector in 
many countries, but there is little evidence 
of the occurrence of this disease at pres¬ 
ent in eastern Canada. Williams (1937a) 
stated that “maculipennis is a good vector 
of malaria but occurs in sufficient quanti¬ 
ties only in New Mexico, California and 
Oregon where the malarious areas are com¬ 
paratively small.” 
In view of the confusion as to the vari¬ 
eties which are included under the name 
A. maculipennis in North America it ap¬ 
pears that the mosquitoes of this group will 
require considerable entomological study 
before their relation to malaria can be 
determined. 
4 . Anopheles (Anopheles) Punctipennis 
Say 1823 
a. Experimental infections. — P. vivax. 
In 1915 King (1916a) infected A. punc¬ 
tipennis with P. vivax. This work was 
confirmed by Mayne (Mitzmain) (1916b) 
who used this mosquito for the experi¬ 
mental infection of human volunteers. 
Similar results were obtained by King 
(1916a), Root (1924b), Barber, Komp and 
Hayne (1927) and Boyd and Kitchen 
(1936a). In the past decade this species has 
been used extensively for the transmis¬ 
sion of therapeutic tertian malaria to 
patients with paresis (St. John 1928). 
P. falciparum. King (1916b) infected 
A. punctipennis with P. falciparum and 
Mitzmain (1917b) and others confirmed 
this observation. 
P. malariae. Mayne (1932) reported the 
infection of 6 of 157 A. punctipennis with 
P. malariae. 
Studies have been made to determine the 
relative susceptibility of A. punctipennis to 
infection with malarial parasites. Boyd 
and Kitchen (1936a), who compared it with 
A. quadrimaculatus, concluded that both 
mosquitoes were about equally susceptible 
to the strains of P. vivax used; and that 
A. punctipennis varied from a high sus¬ 
ceptibility to a probable refractoriness to 
different strains of P. falciparum. Later 
Boyd, Carr and Rozeboom (1938) reported 
other comparative tests in which Florida 
strains of A. punctipennis and A. quadri¬ 
maculatus fed on blood of patients infected 
with nearctic (Florida) and neotropical 
(Cuba) strains of P. vivax and P. falci¬ 
parum. Both of the mosquito species were 
susceptible to infection with all of the 
strains of plasmodia used, but A. quadri¬ 
maculatus was more consistently suscept¬ 
ible to the Cuban parasites than was A. 
punctipennis. 
b. Infection in nature. In view of the 
demonstrated susceptibility of A. puncti¬ 
pennis to experimental infection with P. 
vivax, P. falciparum and P. malariae, it 
seems remarkable that so little information 
is available about its infection in nature. 
Boyd and Kitchen (1936a) stated that “no 
one has ever reported the capture of a 
wild punctipennis with gland infection, 
and only a single instance of a stomach 
infection has come to notice.” The latter 
was reported by Mayne (1917b), but ac¬ 
cording to Williams (1940) the author has 
since expressed some doubt concerning the 
accuracy of the observation. 
