388 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



COIlIlESPON"DEN C E . 



IS YELLOW FEVER EITDEMIC IN THE 

 GULF STATES? 



To tlie Editors of the Popular Science Monthly. 



GENTLEilEN : Mr. L. C. Fisher, of Gal- 

 veston, Texas, has seen fit, in a recent 

 pamptilet,' to attack my article on " Yellow 

 Fever," published in the October number of 

 your valuable magazine, with considerable 

 "warmth and even asperity. He considers 

 himself aggrieved by the statement that yel- 

 low fever is endemic in the cities of the Gulf 

 and South Atlantic coast. If the gentleman 

 wishes to enter into a controversy on the 

 subject, I must certainly decline to meet him, 

 for two reasons : first, because your space 

 is too valuable for interminable discussions ; 

 and, second, it is a matter of general experi- 

 ence that arguments on professional ques- 

 tions with non-professional persons are very 

 unsatisfactory. A few explanatory words, 

 however, I may be allowed to say, and fur- 

 ther than this I shall decline to discuss 

 medical questions with a layman. 



He says, " If it is only endemic in the 

 Gulf and" South Atlantic cities, will Dr. 

 Tracy explain why the disease appeared in 

 Boston and Philadelphia so many years be- 

 fore it appeared in New Orleans?" The 

 answer is a simple one. It was brought to 

 the Northern cities earlier because of their 

 earlier commercial relations with the West 

 Indies, and the difference in the two cases 

 is, that the disease never appears in the 

 Northern cities unless it is imported, while 

 in New Orleans it has never left the city 

 since it was first brought there. New Or- 

 leans was exempt up to 1796, but, according 

 to Dr. J. C. Nott, " from that time to the 

 present (1870) there has never been a sin- 

 gle year without sporadic cases when they 

 escaped epidemics." Mr. Fisher appears to 

 have the idea that a dis:ease cannot be called 

 endemic excepting where it originates de 

 novo, like the malarial poison, for instance. 

 In this sense it cannot be proved that yel- 

 low fever is endemic anywhere ; for, however 

 it may have first started, it is now the ac- 

 cepted belief that it only occurs as a result 

 of previous cases, and it is fairly said to be 

 endemic in places where the poison does not 

 appear to have ever been destroyed since it 

 was first brought to them. The occasional 

 dormancy of the disease does not imply its 

 extinction, for there is no place in the world 

 where it rages as an epidemic the year round. 



Mr. Fisher is also perturbed in spirit 

 because I spoke of yellow fever as " begin- 

 ning its march" and "following water- 

 courses and lines of ocean-travel." He 

 thinks a metaphor out of place in a scien- 

 tific article, and suggests that " a truly sci- 

 entific physician would say yellow fever, or 

 its germs or fomites, is carried," etc. The 

 use of metaphor is of course a matter of 

 taste. He does not like it. I do. And that 

 is the end of it. But when he attributes to 

 the " truly scientific physician " such an 

 expression as the fomites of yellow fever, 

 he shows that he is getting out of his depth. 

 Let him look up the word fomites and see 

 what it means. 



His suggestion that my unpretending 

 article was the result of a deep-laid plot to 

 ruin the commerce of Southern cities is 

 really too funny for sober consideration. 

 Why did he not go a little further, and ac- 

 cuse me of ulterior designs on the throne of 

 Mexico? 



I am sure I should be the last to wish to 

 injure the prospects of any section of our 

 country, and if the present efforts to estab- 

 lish a national quarantine should be success- 

 ful, and the disease should actually be ex- 

 terminated in our Southern cities, I should 

 be very much gratified. But, until that is 

 accomplished, I may surely be allowed to 

 have my own opinion on a question on which 

 opinions are, and always have been, so much 

 divided, and to believe that quarantine alone 

 will not banish yellow fever from our Gulf 

 cities at least. Mr. Fisher's energy and 

 earnestness in the matter are to be highly 

 commended, however, and I certainly shall 

 not try to put any obstacles in his way, 

 however much I may disagree with his 

 theories. Yours, very respectfully, 



Roger S. Tract. 

 New York, November 18, 18"S. 



1 " Yellow Fever's Oriffin. 

 Endemic in this Country." 

 Galveston, Texas. 



The Disease not 

 By L. C. Fisher. 



SCIENCE LECTUEES IN JAPAN. 



To the Editor of the Popular Science Monthly. 



My dear Professor : How I wish you 

 were here to see the eager way in which an 

 audience of intelligent Japanese listen to 

 lectures from their own countrymen and 

 from a few of us who have been fortunate 

 enough to be invited to address them ! 



I have just finished a course of four 

 lectures on Darwinism. Mr. Kikuchi, a na- 

 tive professor in the university, and a grad- 

 uate of Cambridge, England, and a wran- 



