The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-08-31
MALARIA AND MOSQUITOES.


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Continued from page fiveJ
all the samples of water sent aim from
malarial districts with no resulting
malaria.
Investigation by the Unued States
Government in Cuba have resulted in
an order approved by the Surgeon Gem
eral to the effect th"t yellow fever is
conveyed chiefly and probably eXclu-
sively by the bite of infected mosquitoes.
The remedy has been found i'm making
the fever wards absolutely mosquito
proof. The recent experiments in the
Campagna have proved relatively the
same matters in regard to malaria.
In Italy along the line of the Adriatic
railway, so complete have been the in
vestigations that the $500 employees are
placed under the most rigid protection,
this movement extending to similar
companies throughout Italy. 4,r. Chris
tvs final deductions show that the high
mortality of malaria in India, at times
amounting to five millions of people in a
single year may be prevented if mala-
rial mosquitoes could be kept from the
people. Similar facts are noted from
malarial expeditions to the Guinea
cost, West Africa, where the long
abused swamps are shown to be inno-
cent, while the mosquitoes are guilty, of
found in abundance in eighty per cent
of the children under five years of age.
1t has further been Importantly de-
monstrated that it is not necessary for
a mosquito to bite a malariany affected
person in order to carry the disease, the
parasite having been found on mos
quitos that have never had the oppor-
tunity to feed on such persons but who
have been reared in a malarial region.
The responsibility of the insect hav-
ing been verified as the direct agent of
the facilitating scourge of malarial as
well as yellow fever has led up to the
remedies practised to counterfeit the
pest.
OF all these the filing in of swampy
regions is the most positive and effec-
tive cure and, failing that the floating
of kerosene oil on the surface of all
stagnant water. The larvae cannot live
in water that is disturbed or running
freely. At various points in the East
ern States the pest has been banished
by the persistent use of the oil, which
spreads film over the surface through
which the pupa or larva cannot thrust
it's breathing tube and is smoJnered. An
ounce of oil is sufficient for fifteen
square feet of surface, the treatment to
be repeated once in every twenty days.
This practice adopted by law on the
rice and taro patches of the islands, be-
sides all swampy regions, couI~ We done
at a comparatively small expense and,
in lie opinion of many, would not only
prove a relief from the irritating bites
of the insect and the ensuing sickness,
but greatly raise the islands in the es-
timation of tourists.
White owners of rice patches seem to
be ready to fall in with the iuea but i'm
perative measures would have to be
taken to get the Chinese farmers to fol-
low the project with any regularity.
There seems to be a disposition among
the pake holders of leases to think that
the oil would injure the growing rice
and flavor the tarO.
One ingenious pake who produces rice
in Mahoa volley seemed to think that
the floating oil would be an incentive
to rival farmers to burn up each others
patches. The Chinese have a mosquito
powder of their own, consisting of pine
or juniper sawdust mixed with arsenic
and birthstone run into slender bags
and tied with thread, The bags are
then coiled snakewise and one end
lighteu.
Pyrethum powder, moulded while
moist into little cones, acts like the
more familiar buhac, but all these re-
NEEDLES are mere stupefers of the insect.
The planting of eucalyptus groves has
been found to keep away the insects
from the zone bounded by their in
fluence and the castor oil plant has
been discovered equally effective, there
being something in the odor offensive
to the insects.
A British eXpedition is on its way to
Samoa to try and find some natural
remedy, either vegetable or animal,
that is antagonistic to the malarial
mosquito, the same to be introduced in
to affected countries.
Judge Wilcox, when asked as to any
probable effect that the oil might have
upon taro patches replied that he would
rather not have the experiment used
upon his property and added mat he
did not think that either the rice or
taro patches had anything to do with
the propagation of the mosquitoes, it be-
ing impossible for them to breed in
running water with which such patches
are always irrigated.
The judge considered the sloughs of
Kapiolani Park and neighborhood to be
the places most infested with the larvae
together with the numerous ponds in
the direction of Waikiki. This district
he thought should be made the pri-
mary basis of any experiments that
might be started in the community.