Brookings Register

Culex Pipiens.

We all know the creature, but may not perhaps recognize him as readily under this name as under the more familiar, but not thereby despised, one of mosquito. We said 'him,' but we were wrong, for unlike what is found in some of the higher orders of creation, it is the females that make all the trouble and do all the biting and stinging, the male being a very inoffensive and harmless insect, shunning man and getting his sustenance from the juices of plants, a few drops of which suffice for the needs of its short career. We might know that nothing good ever came from the Culicidae, for they start out in life in a way that no self-respecting larva could abide, swimming around, as if ashamed of themselves or of their progenitors, with their heads hanging down in the water and breathing through their tails.

A single mosquito, buzzing about on a warm summer night, can do more to keep away slumber than the uneasiest conscience that ever pricked the soul of man for his sins; yet in this part of the world, even in New Jersey, we do not think of the creature as one that can destroy life. Its limit of evil doing is as a prurifactive and profanity-causing pest. When present in large numbers, however, they may become as dangerous to man as the rattlesnake, or as the man-eater in the Indian jungle. In an article on poisonous insects, in the 'Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences,' Mr. Riley, the government entomologist, says that the pestiferous little insects 'have caused the rout of armies and the desertion of cities, and the hum of an insignificant gnat may inspire more terror than the roar of a lion.'

The bravest man on the fleetest horse dare not cross some of the more rank and dank prairies of Northern Minnesota in June. It is well known that Father De Smet once nearly died from mosquito bites, his flesh being so swollen around the arms and legs that it literally burst.

'Those who have traveled in summer on the lower Mississippi or in the Northwest have experienced the torment which these frail flies can inflict; at times they drive every one from the boat, and trains can sometimes only run with comfort on the Northern Pacific by keeping a smudge in the baggage car and the doors of all the coaches open to the fumes.'

There are said to be more mosquitoes to the cubic inch on the Magdalena River in South America than anywhere else in the known world, and it is madness to attempt a voyage up the river without a mosquito netting and some ammonia or other preparation to relieve the itching of the bites received in spite of constant care. A story is told of an Englishman who was not afraid of a mosquito or two, and scorned to take any precaution before starting up this river for Bogota. He soon had cause to repent of his foolish obstinacy, and after offering vainly all the money he had for the loan of a mosquito netting for the remainder of the voyage, he was driven mad by the tortures on the third day of the sail, threw himself into the river, and was drowned. This may be true and it may not, but any one who has ever faced one of these dense swarms without the protection of a thick net will have no trouble in recognizing the probability of its being an actual occurrence.

But one must give the devil his due, and even the mosquito has his good points, or rather let us say her good points, for, as we hinted before, the male has all the gentle unobtrusiveness and innocuous artlessness of his sex in other walks of life. The larva, wriggle-tails as they are usually called, swim about in stagnant pools and perform a useful service in purifying the water and freeing it from many swarms of microbes that are possibly inimical to man. But it is only in her tender youth that Culex pipiens is good, and as soon as she gets her wings and becomes capable of working mischief, her period of usefulness to the community is at end.

In addition to the irritation which she excites by her bites, she has been accused of carrying about the germs of disease on her proboscis, and thus spreading contagion and defying quarantine. Dr. Finlay, of Havana, has been trying to turn this to good account by making the mosquito the instrument of preventive inoculations against yellow fever. He recently published the statistics of his experiments in this direction, from which it would seem that this method may really possess some efficacy.

The insects that have been seen to bite patients with yellow fever are carried away carefully and made to sting newly arrived and unprotected individuals. Dr. Finlay reports the results of over fifty cases of mosquito inoculation, and of these but four individuals contracted the disease in a severe form within three years after the inoculation, one only dying therefrom. Of the remainder, some presented symptoms of yellow fever between the fourth and twenty-fifth day after inoculation, while others had no symptoms at this time, but suffered later from a mild attack of the disease. Some significant comparative statistics...
Statistics were obtained from the observation of sixty-five who, from time to time, arrived in Havana, where they all lived under similar conditions. Thirty-three of these were inoculated and thirty-two were not. Only two of the inoculated suffered from well marked attacks of yellow fever, which, however, did not prove fatal; whereas eleven of those that had not been inoculated were severely attacked, no less than five dying.

There are numerous patent preparations recommended as efficacious in relieving the irritation caused by the sting of the mosquito, some of which are possibly very serviceable, but probably not more so than oil of cloves, ammonia, bicarbonate of soda, chloroform, or thymol. When none of these remedies can be obtained, it may be well to remember that the alkali of ordinary soap is often as efficacious as anything. As soon as a bite is felt, the part should be moistened and rubbed with a piece of soap, the lather so formed being allowed to dry on the skin, and in a very short time, unless the individual be unusually susceptible to the poison of the insect, all irritation will have disappeared.

But prevention is, of course, better than cure, and most people who, for their sins, must live in a mosquito country, keep off the greater number of their enemies by sleeping under a mosquito bar, although there is always one culex that manages to get in despite the utmost precaution. These bars are a great comfort, nevertheless, and even an absolute necessity in certain regions, but they are very inflammable, and serious accidents have resulted from their being set on fire by the flame of a candle or gas jet in the neighborhood of the bed. We may, therefore, fittingly bring these entomological remarks to a close by presenting the following recipe, published by the National Druggist, for rendering mosquito netting uninflammable:

"Make a solution of one part of ammonium sulphate to five parts of water and immerse the netting in the same. One pound of netting will require from twenty to twenty-four ounces of the solution to thoroughly saturate it. The material is entirely inoffensive, and the ease with which it is employed is not its least recommendation. After saturating the bar (or other material) with the liquid, it is necessary to pass a hot iron over the fabric to dry it and make it ready for use."—Medical Record.