Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1899 — INSECTS HOODOO A COUNTRY [ARTICLE]

INSECTS HOODOO A COUNTRY

They Keep Settlers Away from Many Parts of the World. Nothing could more, strikingly illustrate the importance of small things than the large role which is now attributed to the mosquito in the etiology of some of the most serious and widespread diseases- to which the human race is subject. It is truly said ihat what prevents the successful colonization of many tropical countries, und what throws the greatest obstacle in the way of civilization and of good government in vast regions of Central Africa, is- not climate, not distance from home and not unfriendliness on the part of the natives. The obstacle is malaria, and now we find that the prevalence of malaria, so far as man is concerned, depends on the mosquito, and that this pestilent little insect, in addition to irritating and annoying, is the means by which the poison of malaria is propagated and distributed. For years back botanists have known the, important part played by birds in the scattering of seed, and of insects in the distribution of the pollen of plants, and it seems not unlikely that pathologists will have to recognize in a much larger degree than has till lately been done the large part taken by the subordinate form of life by which we are surrounded—-oar cattle, our horses, our dogs and cats, our flies, our mosquitoes, and perhaps even our fleas—in distributing disease from man to man, and, as is stated in regard to the mosquito and malaria, in deciding whether the ertension of our empire over great areas of the globe’s surface shall be possible or not. —The Hospital.