238 ENTOMOLOGY 



YELLOW FEVER 



From 1793 to 1900 there occurred in the United States not less than 

 half a million cases of yellow fever and one hundred thousand deaths 

 from the disease. New Orleans suffered the worst with more than forty- 

 one thousand deaths, followed by Philadelphia with ten thousand and 

 Memphis with almost eight thousand ; while Charleston, New York City 

 and Norfolk, Virginia, lost together more than ten thousand lives. 



The enormous financial loss from all the epidemics of yellow fever is 

 beyond exact computation; the epidemic of 1878 cost New Orleans more 

 than ten million dollars. 



Yellow fever is now within human control; with no thanks to those 

 who at first violently opposed the theory, and later denied the fact, of 

 its transmission by mosquitoes. 



Until 1901 yellow fever was fought energetically, but fought in the 

 dark. An immense amount of energy was misdirected and millions of 

 dollars wasted in the fight. On the supposition that bacteria were the 

 cause of the disease, methods of quarantine, burning and fumigation were 

 employed that destroyed an enormous amount of property, including 

 valuable cargoes, and paralyzed the business and social activities of 

 great cities. 



Official accounts of yellow fever published before 1900 often describe 

 the disease as due to some insidious poison borne by the air and intro- 

 duced into the human body probably through the respiratory system. 

 It was observed that the disease was often conveyed down the wind, that 

 it was not carried far from the nearest focus of infection, that infection 

 was less liable to occur in daylight than by night, and that cases arose on 

 shore when the only source of infection was a ship that had not yet 

 touched the land. These facts and many others which formerly involved 

 the disease in mystery, are now quite intelligible in the light of the mos- 

 quito-theory of transmission. 



Finlay's Work. The pioneer work leading toward the control of 

 yellow fever was done by Dr. Charles J. Finlay, of Havana, Cuba, who 

 not only advocated the mosquito-theory strongly for many years, but 

 also inoculated by means of mosquitoes ninety human subjects, some 

 of whom came down with what he believed to be a mild form of yellow 

 fever. His valuable work prepared the way for the brilliant investi- 

 gations of Major Reed and his associates. 



United States Yellow Fever Commission. Major Walter Reed 

 was president of the board of medical officers sent to Cuba in June, 1900, 



