The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseasesStitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Science
The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseases
Stitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Tropical medicine
The doing away with mosquito breeding places may be accomplished
by filling in pools or by making ditches with smooth sloping sides
to carry away the water. These ditches require a great deal of
attention to prevent their filling up with tropical vegetation and
thereby adding to breeding places. Subsoil drainage with tiled
drains is better. Care should be exercised that public works
operations do not raise the level of the subsoil water.
Anophelines tend to breed in sluggishly moving streams or in
stagnant pools especially where there is a luxuriant growth of
weeds or grass, and are not apt to be found in rapidly flowing
streams, hence the necessity for constant care of ditches and the
like to prevent their becoming obstructed by vegetation or silt.
When filling in or drainage is not practicable the method of oiling
the surface of the pool with crude petroleum is to be recommended.
One uses about ½ pint for every 100 square feet of surface and the
process should be repeated every two weeks.
In places where oil is not effective, Barber recommends Paris
green mixed with dust and so used as to form a scant surface
deposit. Anopheline larvae, being surface feeders, ingest it and
are killed. It does not affect Culex larvae. On account of its ease
of transportation, and adaptability to weedy places where oil does
not penetrate, Paris green dust will doubtless prove a valuable
selective larvicide. Mayne and Jackson recommend cresol as the best
larvicide. In 1 to 1,000,000 parts it is an effective larvicide,
and even in 1 to 1,000,000,000 it is destructive to young larvae.
Mixtures of soft soap and petroleum are better than petroleum alone.
Winds are apt to blow away the surface coating of oil and it is
difficult to oil the surface of a pool filled with grass. Wise
recommends crude carbolic acid, using 1 ounce to 16 cubic feet of
water.
In using any larvicide it is well to introduce it along the banks
of water collections with a long-spout can and mix it thoroughly
with a stiff reed broom.
There are many enemies of mosquito larvae, such as tadpoles,
water-beetle larvae and various small fish such as “millions.”
Terni suggests the using of such fish as carp and tench which have
a food value as well as a larvicidal one.
(_b_) Measures against the mosquito. The clearing away of grass and
brush from around houses exposes the mosquitoes to the sun in which
they cannot live long.
When inside the house they may be destroyed by sulphur fumigation, 1
or 2 pounds of sulphur for each 1000 cubic feet and with an exposure
of two hours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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