The Control of the Tsetse Fly Menace

Abstract

'T'S ETSE-FLY problems may be divided into three J- -the problem of G. palpalis and the rain-forest tsetses, that of G. tachinoides and that of the savannah or “bush” tsetses belonging to the morsitans andfusca groups. These, as Major Church showed well in his recent article in NATURE, January 31, inhibit the development of vast areas in Africa, and members of the morsitans group are the carriers of Rhodesian sleeping sickness. It is to the control of the bush tsetses that I shall refer in this article (though the broader principles laid down would refer to all), and I shall describe in particular the methods and ideas that we are employing in our fight against them in Tanganyika. These may be understood best if I say that I have from the first felt that if we are to attack the tsetse-fly economically as well as effectively, we must do so in the main by the mere diversion and regulation of agencies already in existence-always, of course, with the fullest knowledge of and regard to the habits of the particular species we are fighting.