FACTS AND FINDINGS 41 



yellow fever are carried, followed by the exceptionally 

 effective methods used in applying this knowledge in 

 those regions where the disease was always a source of 

 dread and death. A Latin American, Carlos Finlay, was 

 really the pioneer in yellow-fever work, and your own 

 Oswaldo Cruz, saved the lives of untold millions by his 

 intelligent application of the principles that Finlay and 

 Reed discovered. 



One might add the discovery of diphtheritic antitoxin 

 to the list of outstanding medical discoveries that were 

 ushered in at the moment when the nineteenth century 

 was giving way to the twentieth. No longer ago than 1893, 

 where records were kept, some 58 out of every 100 diph- 

 theria cases ended in death. After 1895, with the discovery 

 of antitoxin, there were less than four deaths in every 

 hundred diphtheria cases, provided, of course, that the 

 antitoxin was injected shortly after the onset of the 

 disease. 



With typhoid fever, the change in fatalities is even 

 more amazing." During the Boer War, (1899-1900), with 

 only approximately 208,000 soldiers engaged, there were 

 57,683 cases of typhoid with 8,022 deaths, while only 

 7,781 men were actually killed in battle. 



Only sixteen years later, on the great Western Front 

 during the World War, with approximately 1,300,000 

 British, there were in all only 7,500 typhoid cases of 

 which 266 resulted in death. This typhoid comparison is 

 of especial interest because the French did not use the 

 methods employed by the English during the first sixteen 



