The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-20
SCIENTISTS TELL OF BATTLE
 WITH MOSQUITOES IN HAVANA

then fitted with wire screen doors and windows, which make them absolutely mosquito proof In this way it is hoped to keep mosquitoes already infected within the quarantined area, and to prevent any outside mosquitoes from getting in. A guard is placed at the door of the house to see that unauthor- ized persons do not go into the quar- antined area and that care Is using in going in and out of the door, and that the sick room hygiene Is observed. At the same time that the screens are put up, the disinfecting squad proceeds to kill the mosquitoes In the rest of the building. Every room is carefully gone over and sealed, and pyrethrum powder burned at the rate of pound to 1000 cubic feet of air space. The room is opened at the end of three hours, and the mosquitoes on the floor killed. swept up and destroyed. At the same time, the three or four contiguous houses are gone over in the same way with pyrethrum powder. with the idea that any infected mosquitoes which havo escaped may be caught in this way. ... .:r-:# .......
 Tn order to decrease the number of mosquitoes, 1t was concluded that the most practical way would be to destroy the larvae and to drain their breeding places. ~..a..
 The stegomyia, the yellow fever mosquito, breeds principally in pure water and does not appear in large numbers until the warmer weather comes on. Almost all the houses have some means of collecting rain water for washing purposes, and the poor col- lect 1t in barrels In many of the tene- ment houses. occupied by a number of families, each family has a barrel con taining rain-water, and each one of the barrels at this time of the year Is full of larvae of the mosquito. mostly the stegomyia."
 This interesting prophecy was made in report by pr. Gorgas of March 9th, 1901:
 Taking cities in the yellow fever area, such as New Orleans, Mobile, Pen sacola Tampa, Key West and Havana i: those in bad sanitary condition, as shown by their high death rate, would be more likely to become infected than a city such as Havana, which Is in first class condition, as shown by It's low death rate. I think 1t probable that within a year or two, Havana will have to take steps to protect itself from the above mentioned cities"
 It was verified in July. 1905 when Havana quarantined New Orleans.
 "Finally, the complete control over the spread of yellow fever that the San itary Department or Havana has oD- tained this year by the enforcement of prophylactic measures that are based solely on the doctrine of the transmits sion of yellow fever by the mosquito, goes very far to prove that there Is no other channel of communication of the disease. few sporadic cases have occurred, some have been imported from the itnerior: but in every instance the propagation of the disease has been arrested. These results have been ob- tafned by the systematic destruction of mosouitoes in every house where 0 cas. of yellow fever presented itself. If this success is interrupted the re- sponsibility must fall upon the physi- clan who conceals the disease. At the present writing. September IS, there Is but one case of yellow fever in the city of Havana. At this time the annual epidemic is always at it's height. I do not know of a more brilliant victory in the history of sanitary science. Had the American intervention in Cuba done nothing else for humanity, 1t may well stand upon that record. and call upon the coming years of the century to surpass ft.
 a paper before one of the learned societies of Havana in 1880 in which he announced that yellow fever was com municated from one person to another through the medium of mosquitoes. This doctor was chairman of the Medical Board that did so much to rid Havana of yellow fever in 1909.
 The following is to be found in one of the reports to the government:
 'aThe species of gnat which transmitS