Handbook of Medical EntomologyRiley, William A. (William Albert)
Science
Handbook of Medical Entomology
Riley, William A. (William Albert)
Insect pests; Insects as carriers of disease; Medical parasitology
In the United States, one of the most important facts which has been
brought out by the intensive studies of recent years is that certain
species are migratory and that they can travel long distances and become
an intolerable pest many miles from their breeding places. This was
forcibly emphasized in Dr. Smith's work in New Jersey, when he found
that migratory mosquitoes, developing in the salt marshes along the
coast, are the dominant species largely responsible for the fame of the
New Jersey mosquito. The species concerned are _Aedes sollicitans_, _A.
cantator_ and _A. tæniorhynchus_. Dr. Smith decided that the first of
these might migrate at least forty miles inland. It is obvious that
where such species are the dominant pest, local control measures are a
useless waste of time and money. Such migratory habits are rare,
however, and it is probable that the majority of mosquitoes do not fly
any great distance from their breeding places.
While mosquitoes are thought of primarily as a pest of man, there are
many species which have never been known to feed upon human or mammalian
blood, no matter how favorable the opportunity. According to Howard,
Dyar, and Knab, this is true of _Culex territans_, one of the common
mosquitoes in the summer months in the Northern United States. There are
some species, probably many, in which the females, like the males, are
plant feeders. In experimental work, both sexes are often kept alive for
long periods by feeding them upon ripe banana, dried fig, raisins, and
the like, and in spite of sweeping assertions that mosquitoes must have
a meal of blood in order to stimulate the ovaries to development, some
of the common blood-sucking species, notably _Culex pipiens_, have been
bred repeatedly without opportunity to feed upon blood.
The effect of the bite varies greatly with different species and depends
upon the susceptibility of the individual bitten. Some persons are
driven almost frantic by the attacks of the pests when their companions
seem almost unconscious of any inconvenience. Usually, irritation and
some degree of inflammation appear shortly following the bite. Not
infrequently a hardened wheal or even a nodule forms, and sometimes
scratching leads to secondary infection and serious results.
The source of the poison is usually supposed to be the salivary glands
of the insect. As we have already pointed out, (p. 34), Macloskie
believed that one lobe of the gland, on each side, was specialized for
forming the poison, while a radically different view is that of
Schaudinn, who believed that the irritation is due to the expelled
contents of the œsophageal diverticula, which contain a gas and a
peculiar type of fungi or bacteria. In numerous attempts, Schaudinn was
unable to produce any irritation by applying the triturated salivary
glands to a wound, but obtained the typical result when he used the
isolated diverticula.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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