European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 8, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                To your health mosquitoes itching fora bite tit by Gayle Young United press International hey appear to Zero in on their Large with All the Assurance of a heat seeking missile. Female mosquitoes Are Able to rack humans trom substantial distances in order to gel the blood meal they need to mature their eggs scientists say. Most mosquitoes appear to prefer humans Over other animals and some humans believe they Are preferred above All else. They claim they Are bitten More often end think the irritating insects pick them out in a crowd. Scientist Mary Bowen a biologist at Northern Illinois University in de Kalb has spent two years attempting to determine what ally acts mosquitoes to their hosts. She said the insects smell minute amounts of chemicals produced by humans animals and Birds and use chemo receptors on their antennas to track the chemicals to their source. There Are Host preferences such As heat Carbon dioxide and. What we know the most about lactic  she said in an interview. Lactic acid is produced by metabolism and is found in sweat she said it is possible some people May give off More of these chemical cues than others although it has not been proven in any Experiment. Mosquitoes prey on Birds warm blooded animals and even reptiles but Many species of the insect will choose human blood if Given a Chance. Bowen Sard to female insects which Are the ones that bite need a certain amount of blood in order for the eggs which they carry to mature if they Don t get Little Athis year tthey.? a. R 4. 1I. I f , i a enough in the first bite they will continue biting until they do. Mosquitoes release a Small amount of saliva through the skin while feeding which causes a localized allergic realign that is responsible for the characteristic Well and itchiness of a Mosquito bile. Some people appear to be More sensitive to Mosquito bites than others said Bruce Francy an epidemiologist at the centers or disease control division of vector borne diseases at fort Collins. Colo. Sensitivity changes in individuals Fie said recently. Some people the More Biles they get the less bothered they Ere by them. Others get increasingly sensitive As they grow older and get terrible reactions. I be seen people with their whole faces swollen from a sing in bile he said. But even someone who gets hundreds of Mosquito bites at once is probably not in danger of death or disability he said. He said he has never heard of a person going into Shock from Mosquito bites. People in the tropics gel literally hundreds of bites at once he said. It s not pleasant but it s not known lobe  Francy said there is no known Way to prevent an allergic reaction once bitten. In some cases the area around the bile becomes red and swollen immediately while in other cases it takes up to a Day Lor welts to appear. Fee heal packs or creams May alleviate the itching the doctor As Guinea pig by Lee Edsona n enduring theme in science fiction Meed in general literature is that of the slightly mad scientist who carries out a daring and Noble Experiment on himself and is ultimately destroyed by it in some grotesque Way. The classic example is the Case of or Jekyll and or Hyde m which the virtuous or Jekyll succumbs to his own creation the part of him that is tha evil or Hyde. His inevitable self destruction the More horrible the better characterizes the self experimenter of fiction. But it is the opposite effect a High degree of Success that Marks the glory of real life self Experiment. Al least that is the thrust of a new Book by or. Lawrence k. Altman a medical reporter Tor the new Vork times. Who goes first published by random House is a compendium of 14 major profiles interspersed with a number of mini profiles of dedicated doctor researchers who selflessly put their lives on the line or Ted teams that did to Advance the cause of Medicine. Some of the stories Are in part familiar reruns. Like the Story of Waller heed and his learn of intrepid Jungle researchers who conquered yellow fever in Cuba the Story of Louis Pasteur whose Many accomplishments include the Victory Over rabies and the Well publicized tale of the air Force s or. John Paul Slapp who strapped himself into a rocket sled and blasted Oil near the Speed of sound to determine How Many g a of acceleration and deceleration the human body could Page 16 the stars and stripes less familiar but equally heroic profiles include those of William Harrington who lingered Wilh his own bloodstream to learn the secret of idiopathic  Purpura a disorder of Young woman that causes excessive and sometimes deadly vaginal bleeding Joseph Goldberger who inoculated himself with the blood of a pellagra victim to prove that pellagra was not a contagious disease and Werner Forssman. Who threaded a Catheter through one of his veins and into his heart to open a new world of surgery not Allol Altman a subjects who went first survived their sell imposed ordeal. Jesse Lazear an Unsung hero of the War on yellow fever took the bite of a Mosquito and died in agony and Horace Weils a dentist was so dedicated to chloroform that he became addicted through self Experiment and finally killed himself by breathing the Gas while slashing his wrists. If who goes first were merely a collection of dramatic tales in the tradition of Paul Dekruis s microbe  it would have fulfilled its unction Asen entertainment for those who still like to think of doctors As heros. Bui it is clearly More than that. It is an ambitious attempt to Ihu Minale a Little known Comer of medical history and to focus on an approach that in Atlman s View has contributed greatly to medical Progress. Unfortunately not Alt of Ahman a subjects turn out to be benefactors of this tradition. Max von Pettenkofer for instance a distinguished chemist of his time Swatton Vrtik a virulent culture of cholera bacteria to disprove the germ theory behind this disease. When he failed to gel sick he concluded tuesday. September 8,1967 for some but they will not prevent tha reaction from occurring he said. Bites Are not dangerous in and of themselves but Francy said it is possible to scratch a bite until it becomes a wound opening he Way Lor a bacterial infection. This is a problem especially with Small kids became v hey Don t know enough not to scratch  a said. They get bites around their lower legs and ankle and j can t Stop scratching.". Y most infected bites can be treated Al Home with topical antiseptics he said. Mosquitoes aim for Bare skin and do not a Gutsy bit 1 through clothing Bowen said. Chemical repellents can keep  j. Skin but scientists Are not exactly sure How they work & they were discovered by trial and error by a random lest of synthetic chemicals Bowen said. 4 she said most researchers believe chem Teal. J repellents mask the chemical cues that Mosquit owdy4 an to track their Host. If a Mosquito is placed dlr Ecton Ltha skin of someone covered with repellent she of bile without problem. But she will not lend on re or covered skin. F a Francy said it to rare for a Mosquito to Cany Damn Ivy in the United states although some do Cany diff Emit types of encephalitis that can be fatal. Scienza Tewy determined that the insects can pick up the Kush causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome but a unable to pass it on. Erroneously that cholera was no caused by Gem alone and thus helped delay Lor decades the acceptance of the bacterial theory of disease. John Hunter an 18th-Cenlury surgeon is said to bows stilled research in venereal disease Lor a Century because he Drew false conclusions from a sett " Experiment in which he injected himself with the Pis from a victim of gonorrhoea and syphilis. With the Rise of clinical investigation and its acceptance As a Branch of medical science and weft the  of human Experiment under a. Guidelines of the Nuernberg code the big question today is whether the idea of self experimentation a a valid and useful form of inquiry. Altman address this question along with other ethical and practical -. Considerations involved in sell Experiment an concludes that despite the risks and the a Musafi. I the methodology the one who goes first make a a valuable contribution to medical Progress. But  things to watch Lor. The sell experimenter first a to of be the right animal Lor tha Experiment Surg to for example can t test a new procedure Sucora Wolf v a on themselves and of course he should under tata m the Experiment Only when the benefits outweigh a risks. Who goes first is smoothly written and off lev readable though it does t display the passion thl-$1 made microbe Hunters a runaway Best Seth Tom 3century ago. Nonetheless it is worthwhile Reading of .3 both laymen and students of medical history. A j detailed list of references and notes provides an 3 excellent source for those who wish to pursue the 3 subject of Seli experimental Ion in greater depth