ENTOMOLOGY

CHAPTER IIIA General Survey of the Needs of Entomological Sanitation in. America 1w. Dwight PierceNotwithstanding the great amount of publicity which has been giventhe Anti-fly Campaign, one will find throughout our land a rathergeneral disregard of the danger from flies. Certain newspapers kel'pthe subject annually before their readers, but on the whole, public cooperationis slight. A few cities and communities have definitely organizedmosquito control work, and the Public Health Service has done awonderful amount of work in organizing such efforts. From an entomologicalstandpoint our nation is not sanitary. The reason lies in thefact that the public does not yet realize that insects can and do carrydisease. Science has apparently not put forward the idea in such amanner that it has gripped the average person. Until we do this wecannot expect public cooperation in the .attempt to put down insectspreaddiseases.The problems we have to meet may be divided in several differentmanners. We may separate them into problems of municipalities, townsand villages, and rural communities. We may look at them from thestandpoint of the farm, the home, the market, the factory, and theinstitution. They may be sorted out as problems of drainage, wastedisposal, screening, animal control, etc.Of course we have a greater diversity of entomological contrOl problemsin a municipality, but we also have more people who give attentionto matters of health in a city, and who would complain against unhealthfulconditions. On the other hand, while the ,Problems of the ruralcommunity and town are fewer, the insect conditions often become greatlyaggravated because of total carelessness as to sanitation. This carelessnessin small towns and farms is usually due either to ignorance or lackof organized effort for community betterment.The field of the sanitary entomologist who desires to tread virgin soilis therefore to solve the ways and means of obtaining better fly andmosquito conditions in rural communities. Educational work must be11'his lecture was mimeographed and circulated to the class in January and appearedin parts in The American City, for February and March, 1919.34