HOUSING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 
TO MOSQUITO-PROOFING FOR 
MALARIA CONTROL 
By CALVIN C. KIKER 
SANITAEY ENGINEER HEALTH AND SAFETY DEPARTMENT, TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY, 
WILSON DAM, ALABAMA 
Housing may influence regional health 
in many ways. Certain diseases are in¬ 
creased by the crowded condition found in 
the slums of great cities, while others are 
favored by the inadequacy of houses in cer¬ 
tain of the rural sections. The discussion 
here will be limited to housing with par¬ 
ticular reference to its relation to malaria 
transmission in the Southeastern States. 
It must be stated in the beginning that 
health organizations in the Southern States, 
perhaps without exception, consider the 
most effective and satisfactory approach to 
malaria prevention to be through the con¬ 
trol of A. quadrimaculatus, the only im¬ 
portant vector of the disease in this region. 
The soundness of this approach is not ques¬ 
tioned since there can be no malaria trans¬ 
mission in the absence of the vector. A. 
quadrimaculatus is highly selective as to its 
place of propagation, and for the most part 
the aquatic development takes place only 
in the still parts of shallow natural or arti¬ 
ficial ponds where the surface is overgrown 
with vegetation or is covered with flotage. 
There are many ways of preventing or 
limiting emergence of the vector which are 
discussed in detail elsewhere in this vol¬ 
ume; hence, only brief mention will be 
made of them here. 
The only completely effective mosquito 
control measures are those which eliminate 
the breeding areas permanently, usually 
by drainage. The principle of this method 
is applied also to bodies of water which can¬ 
not be eradicated, such as impounded lakes. 
In them environment unfavorable to 
anopheline propagation is produced tem¬ 
porarily at appropriate intervals by chang¬ 
ing the water level, combined with other 
measures which tend to prevent the growth 
of marginal vegetation. All other measures 
directed toward the prevention of mos¬ 
quito propagation are of secondary effi¬ 
ciency. 
Likewise, measures directed toward the 
prevention of malaria transmission must 
be considered to be secondary control mea¬ 
sures. This does not imply that they lack 
importance. The general nature of the 
malaria problems of the United States re¬ 
quires the use of secondary control mea¬ 
sures in many instances. In situations 
where malaria is most prevalent it is often 
associated with collections of water which, 
from an economical standpoint, cannot be 
eliminated by drainage or filling; nor can 
mosquito propagation in them be accom¬ 
plished by other biological control measures 
or by larvicides. Under these conditions, 
the improvement of homes by the applica¬ 
tion of mosquito-proofing, to lower the rate 
of biting frequency, is probably the most 
practical, economical, and effective malarial 
control measure available. 
Shortly after the discovery of the role 
played by anopheles, mosquitoes in malaria 
transmission, the principal bionomic char¬ 
acters of A. quadrimaculatus were defined. 
The fact that this mosquito confines its 
search for blood to evening and night 
hours, when rural families are usually in 
their homes, was soon discovered. This ob¬ 
servation led naturally to a search for meth¬ 
ods which would prevent the entrance of 
mosquitoes into homes, and mosquito-proof¬ 
ing was advocated by many health workers. 
In spite of the fact that improved hous¬ 
ing, including mosquito proofing, has been 
advanced for many years as a practical 
