The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-09-03
THE MUSICAL MOSQUITO.
His Power to InfIlct wounds Result
ing in Blood Poisoning.
From the Philadelphia Ledger.

From the Philadelphia Ledger.
Several medical practitioners were
asked for their opinion of the power of
mosquitoes 10 infict wounds resulting in
blood poisoning, the questions being
based upon alleged cases recently occur
ring, one of which was published in Tues
days Ledger. The information ELECTED
in reply might properly be condensed into
the sentence. II have heard of such
things, but have not met with them in my
own practice"'
Two excerpts were shown the doctors
one that of Raymond Spond, a 5-year-old
lad of Stockton, N. J., who was taken
down with fever, and whose physician
was said to fear blood poisoning, the boys
ailment being ascribed to the fact that
he scratched mosquito bites on his legs
till they bled; the other referred to the
experience of Christopher Elliott of
Jamesburg, N. y, who, at Atlantic City,
last week, felt sharp sting on his right
hand, and at once killed a mosquito that
was the cause of the sensation. His
hand swelled, and since he returned home
the Inflammation communicated to the
arm, and the member was in such a condi-
ton that local physicion was said to fear
that amputation would be necessary.
Some of the physicians who were ques-
toned by Ledger reporters were in
clined to think that either the cases were
overstated or that there was some other
cause than a mere mosquito bite to pro-
duce the results described. One of them
remarked, suggestively: There are prob
ably 10000 people at Atlantic City alone
at times during the season, TO say moth
ing of other seashore resorts or of the in
Vulnerable inland places where mosQui-
toes are more or less thick. Except in
spots, they have not been very numerous
at Atlantic City, but at some other
points along the coast and in many Jer-
sey villages there are as many as a hun
dred of the pestferous things willing to
devote themselves to what you might call
personal attendance on each individual
man, woman and child, and thousands of
these people daily or nightly receive
from one or two to dozens of bites, and
yet such cases as these that have been
recently published are of the rarest.
have known a bad sore TO follow the
scratching of a mosquito bite, but the
poisonous matter was more than likely
to have been communicated by the finger
nails of the sufferer. Every intelligent
persons knows that when the skin is
scratched away so that the blood flows
1t makes a very convenient spot for the
introduction of any poison, and I have
no doubt that the trouble is often set up
in that way, but where mosquito bites
are blamed"
Other physicians believe that mosqui-
toes directly introduce into the human
system poisons that result seriously. Dr.
Taylor, the medical inspector, recalled
that, when he had charge of the city hos
pital, flies and mosquitoes were very trou-
blesome to smallpox and other patients
down with infectious diseases. He
thought it not improbable that, under
certain conditions, these insects could car
ry the poison to and inoculate other human
subjects with 1t, but he could recall no
case of the kind of which he had specific
knowledge.
One practitioner remarks: Consider
ing his extraordinary equipment for mis-
chief, it is a wonder that the mosquito
does not do more harm than he does. The
name given to this little pest, as YOU
know, Is a Spanish or Portuguese word
meaning fly, and our common way of
spelling 1t is one out of a total of no less
than fourteen ways in which it has been
spelled, but they all stand for that same
peculiar, flesh penetrating proboscis, by
means of which this Culex pest pumps
cut of you your blood and into you the
Irritating poison that makes even the most
pious people inclined to use strong Ian
Ruage concerning the animal 1t is an