CHAMBER OF HORRORS

Marlborough Express, Volume LX, Issue 230, 29 September 1926, Page 6

CHAMBER OF HORRORS

INSECTS THAT WAR ON MANKIND. A new form of chamber of horrors, stocked with tlie wax effigies of criminals againist the human race, ilias been opened at the National History Museum, South Kensington, states the Daily Telegraph. The exhibits are models of some of the more virident disease-carrying insects, enlarged to from 1Q0 to 200 times life-size, and the awful reoords of misdeeds which accompany them suggest that, in comparison, tlie common murderor is an angel of light. Strange as it may be, these ugly-looking parasit.es, some of them no bigger than a pin's head in their natural state, have been responsible for the most formidable maladies, which have not only caused millions of deaths, but vitally affect-ed the histories of countries and peoples. Conspicuous amongsti these exhibits are the malarial, yellow fever, and other mosquitoes, relatively less harmful, and these greatly magnified models show exactly the nature of tbe lancet-like probosces with which their mischief is usually wrought. They are as valuable to the scientific investigator as they are interesting to the popular sightseer. Tlien there is the tiny, midge-like sand fly, shown here as a fluffv creature, with wickedly piercing coal-black eyes. In the Eastern theatres of war its cruelly painful bite, though not fatal in its effects, put whole battalions out of action, and tlie worst offenders were apparently the females of the species, which usually do their infamous work by night. Tlie models, the work of three gifted artists, have- been prepared under expert supervision, and it is claimed that there is nothing of tlie kind elsewhere so oomprehensiv© and complete. I11 all there are about a dozen cases, and the explanatory labels, which give the life istories of the insects, with maps to show the parts of the world where they exact their greatest toll of man and animals, have been kepfc as free from technical terms as possible.