There was a time in my boyhood when mosquitos poisoned and annoyed me beyond endurance. Each bite represented a great itching welt, and the buzzing was full of terror in consequence, or, more likely, in the light of present knowledge, the buzzing inspired fearthought or dread, and the bite was very poisonous in consequence. At present, mosquito bites are not poisonous to me, and mosquito sounds are no longer disagreeable. I do not remember when the deliverance came. Possibly the cure came through intimate acquaintance. I have lived in localities where the mosquito thrives all the year round, and in such numbers that he tires his victims into a state of non-resistance, and in the calm of non-resistance, physical and mental irritations cease. This is sometimes called acclimatization, but it proves the contention, whichever way it is interpreted.
In the practice of my freedom from what was once a great affliction, I sometimes brave a swarm of mosquitos by sleeping in their presence without drawing the bar. If the mosquitos light on me freely, I find comfort in the evidence of my popularity, and in the fact that I am probably being of service to something, or somebody, by possibly diverting attentions that would not be appreciated in like manner by them. In the morning, when I look in the glass and note the little red spots that the bites have left, but of which I am not otherwise conscious, I consider them as a record of my hospitality, and am proud of them, as the German corps student is proud of the scars on his face, that are a record of equally foolish bravery or exposure, taken out of his university course at Heidelberg or elsewhere. My braving of the mosquitos would certainly be classed as foolish, except as a test of superiority, but the pin-point red spots soon disappear and do no permanent harm.
Mosquitos are said to breed in malarial conditions, and for the purpose of absorbing the malaria. Flies do not exist except in conditions of ferment, and are of greatest service in carrying it away. Roaches are splendid scavengers, and are a result, and not a cause, of unclean conditions. Our warfare should be waged against unclean and inharmonious conditions, and not against the purifiers and harmonizers of the conditions.