Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-01-05

by Wills j. Abbot, Author of "Pana-
ma and the Canal in Picture and
Prose" 50
Copyright. 1913, Syndicate Publishing
Co, New York. All rights reserved
The latest desire in the unceasing
warfare of the Sanitation Department
upon the mosquito of the Canal Zone
Is contraption which shows which
way the 'skeeter flies, where he comes
from and whittier he is going. 1t is a
small frame holding four glass plates
set at right angles, with each plate
facing one point of the compass
North. South, East or West. All are
properly coated with tanglefoot so
that when the needless mosquito
bumps into plate in his flight he
stays permanently. This machine has
shown that the mosquitoes fly in the
early evening--something that most
of us have discovered without the aid
of mechanical contrivances-and make
their return flight in the early morn
ing hours. The practical advantage of
the device lies In the fact that it indi-
Gates the direction from which the
pestllenttal insects came. If the plates
facing East and North, for example,
are besprinkled with captured insects
the oil brigade and the germicide men
are dispatched in these directions to
look up the breeding places that start
ed out the flying squadrons of pesti-
lence.
Since the mosquito theory of the
methods of conveying malaria and
yellow fever ceased to be theory
and became an established fact, no
pains are too great for the sanitation
force to take in fighting the insects.
In reality there is a certain humor
in this scientific bug hunting. You
are at afternoon tea with hostess in
n arrpi
which the commission supplies to
its workers. The eyes of your hos
tess suddenly become fixed in a ter
rifled gaze.
:, Goodness. gracious!" she exclaims,
look there!"
What? where?" you cry, bounding
from your seat in excitement. Per-
haps blast has just doomed on the
circumambient air and you have WIS.,
ions of fifty-pound rock about to fly
through the drawingroom window.
"There!" dramatically. THAT mos
quito!"
''I'll swat it, you cry valorously,
remembering the slogan of Swat the
Fly" which breaks forth recurrently
in our newspapers every spring
though they are quite calm and un-
perturbed about the places which
breed flies faster than they can be
swatted.
Goodness, no: I must telephone
the department"
Speechless with amazement you
wonder If the police or fire depart
ment is to be called out to cope with
this mosquito. In due time there ap-
pears an official equipped with an
electric fiash-light, phial and a small
bottle of chloroform. The malefac-
the suspect for the anopheles
Malefactor does no evil despite his
sinister name-is mercifully chloro-
formed and deposited in the phial for
a later post mortem. With his flash
light the inspector examines all the
dark places of the house to seek for
possible accomplices, and having
learned that nobody has been bitten
takes himself off.
1t does seem ridiculous amount of
fuss about a mosquito, doesn't it'll
But since that sort of thing has been
done on the one death carts no lon
ger make their dismal rounds for the
nights quota of the dead, and the raw
ages of malaria are no longer so gen.
eral or so deadly as they were.
When Colenel Gorgas came to the
lsthmus the two towns, Panama and
Colon, were well fitted to be breeding
places for pestilence. Neither had
sewers nor any drainage system. The
fashion with cobblestones and lined
with buffers through which the liquid
refuse of the town trickled slowly or
stood still to tester and grow putres-
cent under the glowing rays of the
tropic sun, Colon had no pavement
Neither town had wa
and the people gathered
and stored rainwater in cisterns and
pottery jars, which afforded fine
,,lapoo fav tho rn0eui1ifn AQI
4 matter Of fact the whole Isthmus,
not the towns alone, furnishes plenty
Of homes for the mosquito. With a
rainy season lasting throughout eight
months in the year much of the soil
Is waterlogged. The stagnant back
waters of small streams; pools left byl
the rains, the footprints of cows and
other animals filled up with rain water
quickly breed the wrigglers that ul-
timately become mosquitoes. Mr.. A.
Fl. Jennings, the entomologist of the
has identified 125 varie-
lies of the mosquitoe, of which how
ever, the anopheles and the stegompia
are the ones peculiarly obnoxious to
man. The others are merely the COM
mon or summer resort variety of mos
quito with a fondness for ankles and
he back of ones hand. A careful
Study of literary authorities indicates
70 me lIldI dt tliS punt III ZIG dSSSiiP-
ion of the mosquito plague on the
[sthmus it is proper to indulge in hu-
norous reflections upon the fact that /
he bite of the female only Is danger
,us. But giving the fact the humor
,us applications seems so obvious that
he reader may be trusted to draw
hem for himself-it would be idle to
say herself for women will not see
anything humorous about 1t at all.
Be sure to get copy of Panama
and the Canal in Poetry and Prose"
Clip a coupon from the Telegraph
md present at Office with S1.00.