Pests

It is summer. It is hot. It is wet and humid. And you are probably sharing your Japanese evenings with large, striped Tiger mosquitoes. The insects hatch and begin hunting for mammalian blood in April and continue until the first cold weather in fall. Most of the time the bites cause nothing more than a short-term itch but these bloodsuckers can spread a disease known as Japanese encephalitis that can cause fever, headaches and vomiting for up to two weeks and in rare cases is fatal. There are as many approaches to dealing with mosquitoes as there are sufferers. Some prefer repellents; others are not satisfied until the mosquitoes are eradicated. Some restrict their solutions to natural weapons and others will turn to anything that works. The Japanese have actively battled their tormenters for decades. In 1895 an exporter of mandarin oranges named Ueyama Eiichiro was introduced to a crushed powder from chrysanthemum flower pedals that acted like kryptonite to biting insects. Ueyama blended the powder, whose active ingredient was called pyrethrin, with a starch base that burned as an incense stick and repelled insects. To prolong the effects of the incense he developed mosquito coils that took the name…