FIGHTING GNATS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

FIGHTING GNATS

BV SIATANGA

A PERILOUS ENTERPRISE

"That's the Devil!" said a famous scientist as he looked intently at some caged mosquitoes. Theology apart, ho spoke truth, tlie truth that inspired Sir Ronald Ross from a day in our own tyne until the recent day of his death. It buoyed him in times of painstaking research, and in later years, when hardship befell, it was a deep consolation. To have fought the devil in this particularly noxious guise, and to have unmasked and trounced him, was worth many scars of hapless fortune. Really, "him" is an inappropriate word, for this is an instance of another truth, cherished by unhappy bachelors—that "the female of the species is more deadly than the male." To appear as an angel of light is a well-authenticated trick of satanic genius. But, he or she, the mosquito is the very devil, as the obituary honour given to Sir Ronald lias brought reminder. However, to avoid misunderstanding and injustice, it is well to acknowledge at once that there are iTnosquitoes and mosquitoes. Those known all too well in this country go by the family name of Culex. Pests beyond a doubt, they are less' diabolical than their cousins the Anopheles. These work havoc unspeakable. They have been at it for ages. Very probably, they did more than any other agency of destruction to bring ancient Mediterranean empires to their knees. They intrigued against Greek art and Roman law, and th© cohorts of Caesar could do nothing against them. The Goths and Vandals drove their attacks where an army of gnats had already broken physical resistance. These flying squadrons will do the like again unless the work and words of Ross and others be used in counter-attack by the nations. Modern peoples have suffered no less than did the ancients. > " A Gay Old Pair " " Anopheles and Culex are a gay old pair. What havoc they have wrought on our species during the last three centuries!" That was the breezy way in which one doctor wrote to another in the

first month of this century about mosquitoes;. He was right about the havoc. The gay old pair had been responsible for more deaths than any merry monarch prone to picking quarrels with his neighbours, and between them made life uncomfortable for millions. But the jollity of the letter was all the more buoyant because of the havoc, for this reason given: "The mosquito theory for the propagation of yellow-fever is no longer a theory but an established fact. Isn't it enough to make a fellow happy?" It was in the days when Cuba was the scene of enthusiastic inquiry as to the cause of its unhealthy conditions. The American army, after the war with Spain, was in occupation. Sanitation was a problem of very serious importance. There was every probability of an epidemic of yellow-fever, and malaria was rife. Carlos Finlay's investigations had divined the truth. It remained for a commission of other medical men to prove it, and this the commission, of which the letter-writer about the gay old pair was one, most thoroughly did. Hence the jollity of Reed's letter to Howard when that job was done, and the way was clear for anti-mosquito work on a colossal scale. The army of occupation, under the direc-

its surgeon officer commanding, drove yellow-fever out of Havana, and, incidentally, sent malaria packing too. It was the forerunner of many wonderful victories. New Orleans, four years later, was threatened with a yellow-fever outbreak likely to be as awful a disaster as that of 1878; but the United States Pub-

lie Health Service so ruthlessly tackled the mosquito that the fever's progress was stayed and at least four thousand lives were saved. In Brazil and Mexico similar triumphs were won, and then came the wonder of the Panama Canal, where Gorgas showed that, by ridding the area of mosquitoes, a tropical region might be made safely habitable for white men. Heroes of the Fray They were heroes in research and enterprise, those medicine men of civilisation, deserving of undying honour. Peed died, indirectly as the result of his Cuba« work, too early to receive the Nobel Prize. To one of his colleagues, Carroll, it was intended to award this blue ribbon of the arts and sciences; but his death, occasioned as was. Reed's, intervened. Lazear, tlie third of the American doctors entrusted with the perilous task, succumbed to the fever during the progress of the investigation. They all abide in memory's affectionate regard. Our prominent British toilers in this field—"crazy Pat Manson," daft about mosquito filaria, and Ross, publisher of "Mosquito Brigades"—have since borne

honours as Sir Patrick Manson and Sir Ronald Ross. To Gorgas there came full meed of praise. It followed him across

the world. While busy at Johannesburg he was invited by the Governor of Rhodesia to visit Salisbury, the capital, to discuss measures to be taken against malaria and black-water fever. While

there, he dined one evening with the Governor. "I am glad to see you, General Gorgas," said his host at the drawing room door. Surprised at the title, Gorgas concluded his greeting with a protest: "You arc mistaken; 1 am a colonel." The Governor's reply was a greater surprise still; "It is you who are mistaken—you were made a general yesterday"; and lie handed him a news bulletin, in which was published the announcement that Colonel Gorgas had been appointed Sur-geon-General of the United States' Army. Afterward Britain joined in thanks to him. When a patient in the Queen Alexandra Nursing Home, he was visited by the King and invested with the Order of St. Michael and St. George. He died soon after, and the British Government took out of the hands of the Royal Society of Medicine the arrangements for his burial in St. Paul's and gave him a State funeral. Powerful Foes Yet the honours accorded were not a whit too great, for Anopheles and Culcx are foemen worthy of even a doctor's steel. To kill one man out of every four employed by the French Canal Company on the Panama Isthmus is an achievement meriting awesome respect. It is not certain that the death : rate from yellow fever, malaria, and dysentiy was quite so high as that, for statistics were not kept with completeness; but Gorgas was told so by a trustworthy French informant. The estimate of at least twenty thousand slain by the mosquito is. at all events, well based. The state of affairs was awful beyond description, and there would have been no canal without such a man as Gorgas and sucii a campaign as lie directed.

When the French started to dig the canal, the little stegomyia in its hordes drove them from the task. Otners were to find a way to exorcise the evil. The search cost them dearly. They took their lives in their hands. There is a monument in Cuba that graphically tells this sort of story. It lias a tablet to Dr. Lazear's memory:

Willi more courage llinn the devotion of a soldier, lie risked and lost liis life to show how a fearful pestilence is communicated and how its ravages may be prevented.

A week before bis death he. was busy taking samples of bloqd from hospital patients down with yellow fever. A mosquito hummed round his head and settled on his hand. Calmly he watched it feed and noted its movements, his one desire to test his bolief as to the raids of "Yellow Jack." Madness? It all depends. By such marvellous enthusiasm came knowledge and safety for others.