U.S.Army Capability in the Space Age:We have here been enriching our armory with an abundance of well-fed mosquitos infected with yellow fever and malaria; fleas infected with plage; ticks with tularemia, relapsing fever and Colorado fever; and houseflies with cholera, anthrax and dysentery.Nor are the diseases of plants neglected: we have developed effective methods to kill the crops of wheat, barley, oats, rye, rice and cotton. It has been found feasible, it seems, to spread wheat-rust on the wings of larks. I should like to say at this point, said Dr. Fothergill in one of his addresses, that many of these aerobiological instruments and techniques have been developed to a remarkable state of technical perfection. An experiment has been made by the Chemical Corps of dropping two hundred thousand mosquitoes in special containers all around a certain airbase in Florida which is usually free from mosquitoes .It was found that within a few days, a high percentage of the people living on and around the base had been bitten many times. Had the mosquitoes been carrying a disease such as yellow fever , the Chemical Corps believes that most of the local inhabitants would have been infected. These data about insect carriers are derived from an article by Walter Schneir in the Reporter of October 1, 1959.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 22:10:53 +0000
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