18 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 11 
special emergency efforts materially reduce this waste, or can the 
American people organize to accomplish this end? 
Passing now to medical entomology we are concerned both with 
human life and health and with the economic welfare of our people, 
both of which are vital to the nation, in peace or in war. Dr. W. D. 
Hunter, in his scholarly address on medical entomology at our Cleve¬ 
land meeting in 1913, summarized this subject for us and pointed out 
that, wholly in addition to the sickness, invalidism and deaths oc¬ 
casioned by diseases that are carried by insects and the human interest 
attached thereto, the nation suffers an annual economic loss of some 
$357,900,000. Here again the war emphasizes the importance of 
entomological service, and the conditions that obtain when man is 
about his ordinary pursuits are magnified many times over when army 
camps are established and when man power in civil life is in need of 
being conserved. We may place, then, a very high estimate on the 
value of the knowledge we possess concerning the insects which trans¬ 
mit diseases, as a factor in winning the war, as applied not only in the 
army but also in civil life. 
Being actually confronted by a serious world shortage of foods and 
other necessary agricultural products, and with the allied nations 
looking to us to supply very largely what others lack, we find that the 
first and most urgent demand made upon us is in that branch of our 
service which we call extension entomology. Undoubtedly the next 
great forward step in economic entomology will be in this direction. 
In fact the change is already taking place. Some states have been 
making more than casual efforts in extension w r ork and the passage of 
the Smith-Lever Act gave the movement a great impulse and was the 
first organized effort of national scope towards this end. Under this 
act, one by one, the states have been employing extension specialists 
in entomology. Since the opening of the war the Bureau of Entomol¬ 
ogy at Washington has been given a special emergency fund of $145,775 
under the Food Production Act for extension or control work on 
insects. This is especially gratifying since it will do much towards 
saving crops, and is also very likely to be instrumental together with the 
Smith-Lever Act in bringing about, through the cooperation of federal 
and state authorities, the gradual establishment of a great national 
system through which a very large amount of effective extension work 
may be done. It is to be hoped that, once established, the system will 
be continued after the close of the war. 
This whole movement is just now undergoing a very rapid evolution 
and it is of the greatest importance that while giving special attention 
to the present needs of the nation we do not overlook future needs but 
that we lay the foundations for a permanent extension system in ento- 
