MOSQUITO PEST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23222, 16 December 1938, Page 8

MOSQUITO PEST

DEATH TO INSECTS MENACE IN AEROPLANES USE OF SPECIAL GAS [from our own correspondent] LONDON. Nov. 25 Nearly 200 mosquitoes, all of a potentially malignant variety, were quickly killed recently by a practically odourless and colourless gas distilled from a modest English wild flower. Their destruction occurred at the Imperial Airways Research Station at Battersea., The mosquitoes were supplied by the London School of Hygiene. They died to demonstrate the efficiency of a new method of insect destruction in aircraft that has been perfected after mote than ■ a year of research by Imperial Airways' Chief Medical Officer, Colonel F. P. Mackie, and the manager of the research station, Mr. H. S. Crnbt ree. The insecticide was distilled from the pvrethrum, specially cultivated for the purpose, and the liquid was poured into a light-weight atomiser constructed for use in aircraft and intended to be worked by the engine. The experiment was made in a room twice the cubic capacity of a cabin t>i the Imperial flying-boats, but in seven minutes, about half the time that the gas would bo turned on in ridding an aircraft of insects, all the mosquitoes had died. This gas, which is harmless to humans, will also kill the African tsetse fly, the carrier of sleeping sickness, and' practically all other forms of insect life. All countries through which Imperial Airways' air liners operate have regulations for combating the carrying of disease-bearing insects by aeroplane, but their regulations differ. As soon as official international recognition of the new system is obtained, Imperial Airways will equip all their machines with the apparatus.