Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 July 1896 — How the Mosquito Operates. [ARTICLE]

How the Mosquito Operates.

It has been said that although the mosquito Is in reduced circumstances he has some of the best blood in the country in his veins. It is also interesting to learn that he is a skillful scientist, who draws blood as neatly as any surgeon. Indeed, bls skill, minutely delicate as it is, is simply a tool box in which six delicate instruments are kept. Two of them are exact counterparts of a surgeon’s lance. One is a spear with a double-barrel head. The third an exquisitely fine needle. A saw and a pump go to make up this wonderful outfit. The spear is the largest of the Instruments, and is used in making the puncture. Then the lances come Into play, their work causing the blood to flow more freely. In case the blood does not flow sufiiciently the needle and the saw are Inserted in a lateral direction In the victim’s flesh. The pump, the most delicate of all the Instruments, is used in sucking up the blood. This is the scientific explanation of a mosquito bite. In spite of the beauty of the operation, scientifically considered, people make the same kind of a slap at the mosquito and give way to the same rude language.—New Orleans Picayune.