Insects and Disease 
629 
spicuous among these tests was that of two English physicians, Sambon and 
Low, in 1900, in the “malaria-house” in the Roman Campagna. This ex¬ 
periment is described by Howard as follows: “Doctors Sambon and Low had 
constructed a comfortable little five-roomed wooden house about three hours’ 
drive from Ostia, in one of the most malarious portions of the Campagna. 
The house was tightly built and was thoroughly screened. The experi¬ 
menters lived in this house through the period when malaria is most prevalent. 
They took no quinine and no health precautions beyond the fact that at 
sundown each day they entered the house and remained there until day¬ 
light the next morning. Dr. Rees, of the London School, visited them 
and occupied the house with them for a portion of the time, and all three 
conducted laboratory work in one of the rooms, which was fully equipped 
for such a purpose, and led a busy and contented life. They visited the 
neighboring villages and investigated outbreaks of the fever in men and 
cattle. They received and entertained many visitors who were interested 
in the experiment. They turned indoors before six o’clock and then stood 
at the windows and timed the first appearance of Anopheles, which would 
come at a certain hour each evening and try to enter the screened windows 
and doors. As Dr. Rees expressed it, ‘It must have been very tantalizing 
for them to be unable to get at us.’ When the rains set in, every one said 
that that was the critical time of the experiment. The people in the sur¬ 
rounding country generally became feverish and ill, which meant simply 
that they were all full of malaria, and the chilling caused by the rain brought 
about an explosion of the fever. The experimenters, however, went out 
into the rain and got soaked to the skin, but their health remained perfect. 
Not the slightest trace of malaria developed in either of them; as above 
stated, the spot where the house was built was probably the most malarious 
one in the whole Campagna, and it was situated on the banks of one of the 
canals, which was literally swarming with Anopheles larvae. The prevalent 
idea that the night air of the Campagna is in itself so dangerous was included 
in the experiments, and the windows were always left open at night, so that 
if the marsh air had anything to do with malaria they would have contracted it. 
“ A check experiment was carried on at the same time. Anopheles 
mosquitoes which had been fed on the blood of a sufferer from malaria in 
Rome, under the direction of the Italian authority Bastianelli, were sent 
to London early in July. A son of Dr. Patrick Manson, the famous inves¬ 
tigator who first proved the transfer of filariae by mosquitoes, offered himself 
as a subject for experiment, and allowed himself to be bitten by the mosquitoes. 
He had never been in a malarious country since he was a child, but in due 
time was taken with a well-marked malarial infection of the double tertian 
type, and microscopical examination showed the presence of numerous para¬ 
sites in his blood.” 
