Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 57.djvu/673

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SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.
663

trol of one Leopold, who, in accordance with the doctrine of reincarnation which permeates the several cycles, was in his life the famous Cagliostro. By suitable suggestion, Leopold can be induced to make the entranced subject speak, write, draw, or interpret her strange messages from other worlds; and where Leopold says 'nay' all progress is stopped. This case has many analogies with other cases that have been recorded, but goes beyond most of them in the complexity and bizarre character of the unconscious elaborations and in the feats of memory and creative imagination which it entails. These accomplishments, it should be well understood, never appeared suddenly or fully developed, but only after a considerable period of subliminal preparation, and then only hesitatingly, and little by little, just as is the case with the acquisitions of normal consciousness; and all these acquisitions bear unmistakable marks of belonging to the same person. The special value of this account thus lies in the accuracy of the description and the success with which the account has been made thoroughly intelligible and significant.

THE MOSQUITOES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Dr. L. O. Howard, the entomologist of the United States Department of Agriculture, has just published a bulletin entitled, "Notes on the Mosquitoes of the United States: Giving some Account of their Structure and Biology, with Remarks on Remedies." The author has, for some years, been interested in the general subject of the biology of mosquitoes and of remedies to be used against them, and has brought together in this bulletin all the published and unpublished notes which he has been collecting during this period. The bulletin contains synoptic tables of all North American mosquitoes, prepared by Mr. D. W. Coquillett, and gives detailed facts regarding the geographical distribution of the different species mentioned. All the five North American genera are illustrated and full, illustrated accounts are given of the life history of the two principal genera, Culex and Anopheles, as studied in Culex pungens and Anopheles quadrimaculatus. The author calls special attention to the two genera of large mosquitoes, Psorophora and Megarhinus, and urges the importance of the study of these two genera, especially by physicians in the South, in regard to their possible relation to the spread of malaria. Considerable space is given to the subject of remedies, the principal ones considered being kerosene on breeding pools, the introduction of fish in Ashless ponds, the artificial agitation of water and general community work. It is clearly shown not only that the mosquito may be, in many localities, readily done away with at comparatively slight expense, but that by careful work many malarious localities may be made healthy. The subject of mosquitoes and malaria is not discussed in the bulletin, which contains simply references to available papers on this subject, like the article by Dr. Patrick Manson, published in The Popular Science Monthly for July, the aim of the author being to bring together all available facts about the mosquitoes of the United States, in order to assist physicians who are studying the malarial relation from the point of view of local conditions.