SPREADING DISEASE

Evening Star, Issue 23968, 20 August 1941, Page 8

SPREADING DISEASE

INSECTS AS CARRIERS A most instructive exhibit explaining the relationship between carrier insects and human diseases was on display in the Dominion Museum last week-ena. It has been prepared in the entomological section of the museum under the Carnegie exchange system, by which exhibits circulate round the museums of the Dominion. The exhibit, which takes the form of a series of drawings in relief, graphically links each insect with the diseases of which it is the carrier. The mosquito, for instance (says the ‘ Post ’), is shown to be resiwnsiblo for the dissemination of malaria, elephantiasis, yellow fever, blaekwater fever, dengue, and creeping myasis. The danger of the common housefly is emphasised by its links with typhoid, infantile diarrhoea, amoeboid and bacterial dysentery, tuberculosis, anthrax, leprosy, yaws, trachoma, and pink eye) as well as, in the tropics, cholera. Bed bugs, lice, fleas, and other parasitic carriers are also illustrated. In dealing with the malaria mosquito, anopheles maculipennis, an ingenious diagrammatic drawing shows the life cycle of the malarial parasite projected in the form of a graph on the periodic rise and fall of body temperature of the patient during the course of the disease. Most delicately executed drawings of the insects concerned are an interesting feature of the display. The display embodies world maps showing the incidence ot a number of the diseases. There is also a map showing the habitats in Africa of the tsetse fly. , It is emphasised that neither anopheles maculipennis, the malaria carrier, nor aides aegyptu tho yellow fever carrier, are found in New Zealand at present, but the growth of air communications greatly increases the possibility ot their appearance. Precautions are, of course, taken at air terminals to minimise the danger of their arrival. . . The exhibit is expected to begin its tour of the Dominion museums next week, and with a stay of six weeks at each will return to Wellington about a year hence. It will then be incorporated in a “ Hall of Insect Life,” for which a number of other displays have been completed and more are in course of preparation. Those completed include “ Census of Insects.” Insect Classification,” and “ The Insect Dye,” while among those in preparation are ” Fossil Insects ” and “ The Insect Body.”