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If we are not to slaughter mosquitoes, because they are living creatures, then we ought logically not to slaughter the germs of syphilis with Salvarsan or penicillin. We ought to let them destroy a man's flesh and poison his descendants, for these germs too are living creatures. Let us not anthropomorphize the mosquitoes' sufferings. When we kill them they do not feel anything like that pain that creatures with more developed nervous systems feel.

-- Notebooks Category 6: Emotions and Ethics > Chapter 7 : Miscellaneous Ethical Issues > # 17