On the Hackensack marshes to-day trenches are cut to let the water out
of the tidal pools; while in low-lying areas, which cannot be thus
drained, the central lowest spot is selected, a barrel is sunk at this
spot, and four or five "killie" fish are placed in it. Trenches are cut
converging into this barrel from the whole of the area to be drained,
and behold, no more mosquitoes can breed in that area, and, in the
language of the day, "get away with it."
Finally, most consoling of all, it was discovered that, while the
ordinary _Culex_ mosquito can breed, going through all the stages from
the egg to the complete insect, in about fourteen days, so that any
puddle which will remain wet for that length of time, or even such
exceedingly temporary collections of water as the rain caught in a
tomato-can, in an old rubber boot, in broken crockery, etc., will serve
her for a breeding-place, the _Anopheles_ on the other hand takes nearly
three months for the completion of her development. So that, while a
region might be simply swarming with ordinary mosquitoes, it would
frequently be found that the only places which fulfilled all the
requirements for breeding-homes for the _Anopheles_, that is, isolation
from running water or larger streams, absence of fish, and persistence
for at least three months continuously, would not exceed five or six to
the square mile. Drain, fill up, or kerosene these puddles,--for they
are often little more than that,--and you put a stop to the malarial
infection of that particular region. Incredible as it may seem, places
in such a hotbed of fevers as the west coast of Africa, which have been
thoroughly investigated, drained, and cleaned up by mosquito-brigades,
have actually been freed from further attacks of fever by draining and
filling not to exceed twenty or thirty of these breeding-pools.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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