Volume 1

The mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies / by Leland O. Howard, Harrison G. Dyar, and Frederick Knab.

  • Howard, L. O. (Leland Ossian), 1857-1950.
Date:
1912-1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies / by Leland O. Howard, Harrison G. Dyar, and Frederick Knab. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Hebrew scriptures upon the extraordinary persistence of that race through centuries of European oppression—centuries full of plague years and of terrible mortality from preventable disease ? And what more striking example can be advanced of the effect of an enlightened and scientifically careful attention to the most recent advances of preventive medicine upon the progress of nations than the mortality statistics of the Japanese armies in the recent Eusso-Japanese war as compared with the corresponding statistics for the British army during the Boer war immediately preceding, or for the American Army during the Spanish war at a somewhat earlier date? The consideration of these elements of national progress has been neglected by historians, but they are nevertheless of deep-reaching importance and must attract immediate attention in this age of advanced civilization. The world has entered the historical age when national greatness and national decay will be based on physical rather than moral conditions, and it is vitally incumbent upon nations to use every possible effort and every possible means to check physical deterioration. LOSSES FROM MOSQUITOES ASIDE FROM THE CARRYING OF DISEASE. Entirely aside from the loss occasioned by mosquitoes as carriers of specific diseases, their abundance brings about a great monetary loss in other ways. REDUCED VALUE OF REAL ESTATE. Possibly the greatest of these losses is in the reduced value of real estate in mosquito-infested regions since these insects render absolutely uninhabitable large areas of land otherwise available for suburban houses, for summer resorts, for manufacturing purposes, and for agriculture. The money loss becomes most apparent in the vicinity of large centers of population. The mosquito- breeding areas in the vicinity of New York City, for example, have prevented the growth of paying industries of various kinds, and have hindered the proper de- velopment of large tracts to an amount which it is difiScult to estimate in dollars and cents and which is almost inconceivable. The same may be said for other large cities near the sea-coast, and even of those inland in low-lying regions. The development of the whole State of New Jersey has been held back by the mosquito plague. This point has been insisted upon by Dr. John B. Smith, in his excellent article entitled: The general economic importance of mosquitoes, in the Popular Science Monthly for April, 1907, and he has put it so strongly, and he is so familiar with the New Jersey conditions, that we quote from his article as follows: There is no exaggeration in the statement that the elimination of the mos- quito would add ten millions to the taxable value of real estate in two years. [In the vicinity of New York City?] Let me illustrate: New York City is a highly desirable place of residence in winter; but less so in summer, and there are thousands of residents of New York City who are well able to afford a summer home within an hour or two from town, and who are quite willing to pay for it. New Jersey has many places ideal in situation and accessibility, and one such place developed rapidly to a certain point and there it stood, halted by the mos- quitoes that bred in the surrounding marsh lands. Country club, golf, tennis and other attractions ceased to attract when attention was necessarily focused