a handbook of the mosquitoes of north america - Systematic Catalog ...

CHAPTER III
MOSQUITOES IN RELATION TO HUMAN
WELFARE
Mosquitoes have always plagued man and animals. They
have limited and still limit his occupation of many regions of
the globe. Always considered as abominable pests, about:
which he knew little and cared less, he was suddenly awakened
to their extreme importance by the discovery by Sir Ronald
Ross, in 1898, that they are the vectors of malaria or ague.
Long before this, however, Sir Patrick Manson had shown, in
1878-79, that mosquitoes were the intermediate hosts of Filaria
bancrofti, a round worm which causes serious diseases of man.
This discovery had not attracted much notice as the diseases
caused by this worm were not known and even yet are not
well understood. The discovery, in 1900, by Reed, Carroll,
Lazear and Agramonte that yellow fever is distributed by a
mosquito aroused the greatest interest in the mosquito prob-
lem. At the present time, mosquitoes are regarded by many
persons as the most important group of all our blood sucking
insects. In this chapter only a very brief account can be given
of the many and important relations existing between man and
mosquitoes.
In general, mosquitoes may be said to affect man’s welfare
in the following ways:
( 1) Direct irritation caused by their bites.
(2) Diseases of man which are transmitted through the
agency of mosquitoes.
(3) Diseases of his domestic and game animals which are
transmitted by mosquitoes.
45