Mosquito brigades and how to organise them / by Ronald Ross.

Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mosquito brigades and how to organise them / by Ronald Ross. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    face against such doings. With a pipe water-supply, and specially constructed cisterns for washing clothes, most wells and washing-pits may be filled up. It will sometimes happen that the breeding-places can- not easily be found owing to a quantity of rank vegetation. It is very wrong to allow such in the middle of towns, and the presence of ill-kempt areas full of weeds is a proof of incompetent municipal management. Efforts should be made to clear up such places. See Young’s Paper in the Appendix. A large proportion of the sickness prevalent in tropical towns is directly due to mismanagement on the part of the local authorities. These nearly always show a tendency to pay the least possible attention to the cleanliness and tidiness of their towns. Much of the money available for sanitation is often spent, not on getting the work done, but in paying far more than the market value for supervising officers who—draw their salaries and write reports. It is high time that a radical change be made in these matters. Leading citizens who cannot get improvements made by quieter means will generally obtain attention if they write to the principal home papers on the subject. It is monstrous that large towns should be allowed to remain in the disgust- ing condition in which, as a matter of fact, they often are. 14. Destruction of Larvae.—As argued in paragraph 3 it is better to obliterate the breeding places of mosquitoes than to spend much time over merely destroying the larvae. We may continue to destroy the larvae with oil for months, leaving the pools themselves alone, and yet find that after every operation fresh eggs are laid by the adult insects living in the houses, and that fresh larvae develop. It is