Popular Science Monthly/Volume 87/July 1915/Some Pioneers in Mosquito Sanitation and Other Mosquito Work I
| SOME PIONEERS IN MOSQUITO SANITATION AND OTHER MOSQUITO WORK |
By Dr. L. O. HOWARD
BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY
IN planning, as early as 1903, a monograph of the mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies which should be of service to zoologists and sanitarians,[1] the writer included in his outline plan some consideration of the pioneer workers in this field, and with considerable trouble secured the photographs which are reproduced in this article. He well knew the interest which always attaches to the personalities of men who do great work, and felt sure that the publication of these likenesses would add greatly to the interest of the monograph. But when the monograph was completed and printing begun, he discovered that the Carnegie Institution of Washington had laid down a rule that the portraits of living men were not to be published in any of the volumes issued by the institution. This was rather embarrassing, since it had been definitely stated to the foreign workers that the photographs would be used in this way; but since this was impossible, it seems desirable to have them appear in accessible form, and it is with full confidence that the readers of The Popular Science Monthly will be glad to know what these men look like that these lines are written. During the four or five years following Ross's discovery of the carriage of malaria by certain species of Anopheles there was intense activity in many parts of the world in mosquito investigations, and it is the pioneer workers of this period who are here shown. The only very prominent worker who is omitted is Robert Koch, whose photograph I was unable to secure. The only Americans included are the original members of the Army Yellow Fever Commission, Dr. A. F. A. King, of Washington, Dr. J. H. White, of the U. S. Public Health Service, and Surgeon-General Gorgas, who during that period had accomplished his wonderful clean-up of Havana.
They are a fine, forceful set of men, as their faces show, and to this group the world for all time will owe much. Nearly all of them are, or were, known personally to the writer, and he can thus assure those who read this article that the faces of the men themselves are like their photographs. 
Sir Patrick Manson
Sir Patrick Manson, F.R.S., K.C.M.G., M.D., LL.D.; late physician and medical adviser to the Colonial Office; distinguished as a pioneer investigator and teacher; author of a standard work on Tropical Medicine; the discoverer of the transmission of filariasis by mosquities; the man who suggested to Ronald Ross his investigations of the transmission of malaria by mosquitoes.
Sir Ronald Ross
Major Sir Ronald Ross, K.C.B., M.R.C.S., D.P.H., Hon. F.R.C.S., LL.D., Sc.D., M.D., F.R.S., professor of tropical sanitation, University of Liverpool and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; physician for tropical diseases, King's College Hospital; member of many sanitary committees; commenced special study of malaria in 1892 and later definitely traced the relations between malaria and mosquitoes; has since made tropical hygiene his life study and has conducted investigations of the highest importance in many parts of the world. He received the Nobel prize for his work in medicine in 1902.
Professor George H. F. Nuttall
George H. F. Nuttall, F.B.S., M.A., M.D., Ph.D., Sc.D., Quick professor of biology, Cambridge University, England; chief editor and founder of the Journal of Hygiene and of Parasitology; an eminent bacteriologist and parasitologist, who early studied the biology of the Anopheles mosquitoes of England, and who has written much of the carriage of diseases by insects. Dr. Nuttall is an American by birth and was educated at Johns Hopkins University, and later in Germany, where he lived for a number of years.
Dr. Arthur E. Shipley
Arthur E. Shipley, F.R.S., M.A., Sc.D., master Christ's College, Cambridge University; reader of zoology; co-editor of Parasitology and of the Journal of Economic Biology. A broad, general zoologist who collaborated with Nuttall in some of his early studies on malarial mosquitoes of England, and who has written much on the subject.
Professor Frederick V. Theobald
Frederick V. Theobald, M.A., vice-principal of the Southeastern College of Agriculture at Wye, Kent, England; professor of economic entomology and zoology; author of the five-volume monograph of the Culicidæ of the world, issued by the British Museum of Natural History, the first two volumes of which were published, with a volume of plates, in 1901, and afforded a convenient method for the determination of species to the early workers in the transmission of disease by insects.
Professor G. B. Grassi
Professor Dr. G. B. Grassi, professor of comparative anatomy and entomology in the University of Rome, and director of the institute of comparative anatomy; a very famous man of many-sided accomplishments, who, with Celli, studied the relations of malaria and the Anopheles mosquito, and was the first to point out that while early experiments with the carriage of malaria hy mosquitoes of the genus Culex were negative, they might be successful with those of the genus Anopheles, just as Ross in India failed with his initial work with Culex and succeeded with the "dapple-winged" mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles.
Professor Angelo Celli
Professor Dr. Angelo Celli, director of the institute of hygiene, University of Rome, Italy. He was, up to the time of his very recent death, one of the foremost living workers in hygiene. His investigations and those of his colleagues and students were almost simultaneous with those of Ronald Ross in India, and largely through his personal instrumentality malaria has been enormously reduced in Italy. The Roman Campagna has once more been made habitable and the health of the peasants has very greatly improved.
Dr. C. L. A. Laveran
Dr. C. L. A. Laveran (ordinarily written A. Laveran), member of the Institute of France; member of the French Academy of Medicine; famous protozoologist; professor of protozoology, Pasteur Institute, Paris. He was the first to demonstrate the true cause of malaria and to describe the malarial parasite; is a very learned man in protozoology and has occupied himself much of late years with the subject of tropical diseases as they occur in the tropical and oriental French colonies.
Professor Raphael A. E. Blanchard
Professor Dr. Raphael A. E. Blanchard (commonly known as Raphael Blanchard), professor of parasitology of the faculty of medicine in the University of Paris; director of the Archives of Parasitology; author of a standard two-volume treatise on medical zoology, and one of the most prominent figures in medical zoology to-day. He is the author of a large work on the natural and medical history of mosquitoes, published in Paris in 1905.
Dr. Edmond Sergent
Dr. Edmond Sergent, director of the Pasteur Institute of Algeria; a man who, with his brother Étienne, chief of the malarial laboratory of the Pasteur Institute of Algeria, has made a special study of malarial mosquitoes and has devoted years to the problem of alleviating malarial conditions in Algeria.
Professor D. Marchoux
Professor D. Marchoux, microbiological laboratory, Pasteur Institute, Paris (section of tropical bacteriology); head of the French Commission to Brazil, which carried on monumental studies concerning the yellow-fever mosquito in Rio Janeiro, making many important discoveries.
Dr. E. Simond
Dr. E. Simond, Pasteur Institute, Paris; was a member of the French Commission to Rio Janeiro, with Professor D. Marchoux, which conducted the magnificent investigations on yellow fever and the yellow-fever mosquito, and which confirmed the work of the U. S. Army Commission in Havana.
(To be continued)
- ↑ This work under the joint authorship of the writer, H. G. Dyar and Frederick Knab, has been completed. Two volumes have been published, and the final two will shortly appear, under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.