632
other cheap but effective preparations.
Sewerage systems should be in good
order, not leaking, up to date, not ex-
posed to flies. Kerosene should be
poured into drains. All table refuse
should be burned or buried. Any fly
that is seen has its breeding place in
near-by filth — behind the door, under
the table, in the cuspidore. If there is
no dirt or filth, there will be no flies.
A nuisance in the neighborhood should
at once be reported to the health depart-
‘ment,
Fatal to Bacteria
To kill flies the London Lancet ad-
vises a weak solution of formaldehyde
in water (two teaspoonfuls to the pint) ;
this has no offensive smell, is fatal to
bacteria, and is practically nonpoisonous
except to insects. Ten cents’ worth will
last a whole summer. The solution is
to be placed in plates or saucers through-
out the house. Pyrethreum powder (to
be bought in any drug store) will also
kill flies.
Science now asks us with considerable
fitness to speak not of malaria, but of
mosquito fever. As every one knows,
it is the specie of mosquito called anoph-
eles which is solely responsible for the
propagation of this disease.
This insect breeds in still water, in
moist sand or moss, in pools by the side
of open streams, in permanent accumula-
tions of water of any sort — irrigating
ditches, stagnant waters where there is
green scum, in beds of old canals, old
horse troughs, and the like. When the
blood of a malaria sufferer is sucked
into the stomach of anopheles the para-
site undergoes development, and the pro-
ducts of this process enter the mosquito’s
salivary glands and are ejected into the
system of the next person bitten. If
this latter unfortunate has been nonma-
larial he thus contracts the disease un-
less his antibacterial forces are able
THE WATCHMAN
Example
WE scatter seeds with careless hand,
And dream we ne’er shall see them more;
But for a thousand years
Their fruit appears
In weeds that mar the land,
Or healthful store.
The deeds we do, the words we say,—
Into still air they seem to fleet,
We count them ever past;
But they shall last,—
In the dread judgment they
And we shall meet.
I charge thee by the years gone by,
For the loves sake of brethren dear,
Keep thou the one true way,
In work and play,
Lest in that world their cry
Of woe thou hear. —John Keble.
before mischief is done to destroy the
poison.
Prevention of Malaria
The prevention of malaria, then, lies
in destroying all breeding places within
the radius of a mile (Anopheles does not
usually fly to great distances). The
way to do this is to drain or fill in with
earth or cover the surface of water with
a thin film of kerosene oil or introduce
numerous sticklebacks of gold or sun
fish, which eat the larvae of this mos-
quito.
Experiments are now in process to-
ward the introduction of millions in ma-
laria (or mosquito fever) prophylaxis.
Millions are little fresh-water fish from
Barbadoes. A large number of them
were presented to the London zoological
gardens. Malaria is much less common
in Barbadoes than in other West Indian
islands, and this comparative freedom
has been thought to be due to the pres-
ence of myriads of millions in the fresh
water pools; they are at any rate vora-
ciously fond of anopheles larvae and de-
stroy enormous numbers of them.—Sel.