The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-08-30
WOULDN'T KILL 'EM
OIL WOULD NOT REMOVE MOSQUE
TOES FROM SAVANNAH.
so HEALTH OFFICER THINKS.
LoWLANDS ABOUT SAVANNAH
WOULD PREVENT THE CURE.

Cost Would Be So Great That the
Benefits of a Liberal Application
of Oil, DIR. Drummer Believes,
Would Not Be Commensurate With
It-MOsquitoes Not the Only Means
Through which Disease Can BE
Transmitted-A City Free of Mos
quItOes, Therefore, Would Not,
Necessarily, BE Free of MaInrial
Fever-Not Only AiIanthus, but
Eucalyptus and Castor Oil Plant
HurtfuI to Mosquitoes.
While New Yorks health officer, DR..
Doty, is conducting a crusade against
mosquitoes, Savannah's health officer,
DR.. w. F. Drummer, does not be-
lieve the most vigorous campaign
against the pest in and around Savan-
nah would result in any appreciable
decrease in the number of the insects.
DR.. Drummer does not think the game
would be worth the candle. Enough
mosquitoes could not be killed by oil
treatment, he thinks to render the
city immune from malarial fever, the
disease that a certain species of mos
quito is looked upon as a pronounced
agency for transmission from one per-
son to another.
by spending a great deal of money,
possibly $50,000," said DIR. Drummer, ''in
putting oil ON water pools in and
around Savannah, to say nothing of the
cost and trouble of seeing that meas
ure providing for such precaution was
enforced, it might be that fourteen
mosquitoes would be killed, but the
fifteenth would be left, and she could
get in her work just the same. She
could convey the germs of disease just
as we'll as those that had helped her
before they were caught in the scheme
undoing of the pest.
The effort would scarcely be worth
while in Savannah. There is too much
low lands about the city to admit of the
oil preventive being employed. OF
course. by simply combining the work
reduction in the number of mosquitoes,
but there would still be enough left to
do damage. They would be blown into
the city by the winds. An authority
says that a few hundred yards is as far
as mosquitoes can travel from where
they were bred but I have known of
their being brought two miles. That
was across water, too. They could not
have swum, so they must have flown.
Besides, mosquitoes, while they are
a fruitful means for the transmission
of disease, are not the only agency
through which it can be conveyed from
one person to another. Tests have
shown that. So, even though a city
were completely rid of mosquitoes,
there would not be immunity from a
disease that they were accustomed to
spread.
"Oil kills the larvae of mosquitoes be-
cause they have to breathe. APP
proach water in which there are
wiggle- tails and see them dodge down
from the surface. They'll come wig
Cling back in short time. That's be-
cause they need air. Oil will cover the
surface of water, SO that they can't
reach the air. There are plen-
ty of mosquito species. Only
one conveys malarial germs. This
is the anopheles The female of that
species does the biting, and she. stands
on her head to do it. Anyone may no
tice a malarial mosquito by this pc
culiarity and by the color-gray. The
larva of the anopheles is very hardy.
1t is deposited in very stagnant wa
ter. The water may dry up, but the
larva will remain in the mud. The first
fall of rain that may renew the supply
of water will revive the larva, and af-
ter a bit it will be a full-f1edged mos
quito. The ordinary mosquito, culex
fasciatus, does not convey disease
germs"
DR.. Drummer thinks that nets and
screens and other mosquito guards are
excellent precautions. not only against
the sting of mosquitoes, but against
disease. He also considers that certain
trees or plants, notably the eucalyptus
and the castor oil plant keep mosqui-
toes away. He thinks it not improbable
that Capt. George Hope of Atlanta, who
is credited with a discovery that all
anthus trees are a. prevention for mos
quitoes, is correct. 1t was reported in
a dispatch to the Morning News from
Atlanta that Capt. Hope has learned
that mosquitoes are numerous, large
and lusty in that city, whereas, some
years ago, before the ill-smelling all
anthus trees were cut down, there were
but very few of the insects. and they
but scrawny specimens of their race