Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/51

Rh mosquito theory of malaria; by Dr. Nuttall, of the Hygienic Institute of Berlin, who has made a special study of the relations between insects and disease; and, I understand, by M. Metchnikoff, Director of the Laboratory of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Lately, moreover, Dr. C. W. Daniels, of the Malaria Commission, who has been sent to study with me in Calcutta, has confirmed my observations in a special report to the Royal Society; while, lastly, Professor Grassi and Drs. Bignami and Bastianelli, of Rome, have been able, after receiving specimens and copies of my reports from me, to repeat my experiments in detail, and to follow two of the parasites of human malaria through all their stages in a species of mosquito called the Anopheles claviger.

It may therefore be finally accepted as a fact that malaria is communicated by the bites of some species of mosquito; and, to judge from the general laws governing the development of parasitic animals, such as the parasites of malaria, this is very probably the only way in which infection is acquired, in which opinion several distinguished men of science concur with me.

In considering this statement it is necessary to remember that it does not refer to the mere recurrences of fever to which people previously infected are often subject as the result of chill, fatigue, and so on. When I say that malaria is communicated by the bites of mosquitoes, I allude only to the original infection.

It is also necessary to guard against assertions to the effect that malaria is prevalent where mosquitoes and gnats do not exist. In my experience, when the facts come to be inquired into, such assertions are found to be untrue. Scientific research has now yielded so absolute a proof of the mosquito theory of malaria that hearsay evidence opposed to it can no longer carry any weight.

Hence it follows that, in order to eliminate malaria wholly or partly from a given locality, it is necessary only to exterminate the various species of insect which carry the infection. This will certainly remove the malaria to a large extent, and will almost certainly remove it altogether. It remains only to consider whether such a measure is practicable.

Theoretically the extermination of mosquitoes is a very simple matter. These insects are always hatched from aquatic larvæ or grubs which can live only in small stagnant collections of water, such as pots and tubs of water, garden cisterns, wells, ditches and drains, small ponds, half-dried water courses, and temporary pools of rain-water. So far as I have yet observed, the larvae are seldom to be found in larger bodies of water, such as tanks, rice fields, streams, and rivers and lakes, because in such places they are devoured by minnows and other small fish. Nor have I ever seen