HISTORY OF PUBLIC
HEALTH ENTOMOLOGY AT THE
John F. Anderson
Department of Entomology and Center for Vector
Biology and Zoonotic Diseases
The
ABSTRACT
Scientists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment
Station have responded to the public health needs of citizens for over a
century. Malaria and yellow fever during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station began
studying the ecology of mosquitoes and developing methods of control in the
early 1900s at a time when malaria caused human disease and death and hordes of
salt marsh mosquitoes made life miserable in many shoreline communities along
Long Island Sound. This was also a time
when epic discoveries made elsewhere documented the importance of mosquitoes in
transmitting the pathogens that cause malaria and yellow fever. Shortly thereafter the control of mosquitoes
was demonstrated by William Gorgas to reduce these diseases in
I describe the successful efforts in the early part of
the 20th century to control salt marsh mosquitoes through ditching of
Studies on the ecology and control of ticks were
initiated when Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease, babesiosis, and anaplasmosis became health problems in the later part of
the 1900s. These studies and various
services to the public, such as development of serology tests and tick
identification and testing ticks for the presence of the spirochete that causes
Lyme disease, were done to reduce risk of citizen exposure to disease and to
confirm specific infections. Studies of
the biology and control of bed bugs, house flies, deer flies, and horse flies
were also undertaken.
The published manuscript upon which this presentation
is based is entitled “The History of Public Health Entomology at the
Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station 1904-2009” and may be obtained
without charge by going to www.ct.gov/CAES
and clicking on “The history of public health at CAES 1904-2009”.