32 FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



days, and not till then, becomes capable of imparting 

 the infection to those whom it may stab or "bite." 1 

 The firm demonstration of this fact was not made with- 

 out great devotion, courage, and self-sacrifice. In the 

 ardour of their pursuit not a few of the experimenters 

 risked and lost their lives. Among these the name of 

 Dr. Lazear, of the United States Army, is prominent. 

 He deliberately permitted himself to be bitten by a stray 

 mosquito in a yellow fever hospital, in order to 

 show that the insect could convey the infection. He 

 was bitten on Sept. 13, 1900, and died on Sept. 25, 

 having proved his point. 



The actual germ, microbe, or minute parasitic organism 

 which causes yellow fever, and is carried by the fasciate 

 gnat, has not yet been detected. Nevertheless, without 

 seeing and isolating the microbe, the medical men of 

 America (Sternberg, Finlay, Carroll, and others) have, 

 by destroying the gnat and preventing its access to 

 men especially to patients already infected, and, there- 

 fore, certain to infect the gnats and cause them to 

 spread the disease practically made an end of yellow 

 fever in many great cities of the New World, where it 

 was only six years ago an ever-present horror, striking 

 men down with a suddenness and with a deadliness 

 which paralysed human activity. Here, as in other 

 cases, intelligent appreciation of the results of science 

 by a governor or a municipality has saved thousands of 

 lives. On the other hand, in Rio de Janeiro, " the 

 opposition encountered by the sanitary authorities of 

 the city from political factions and the ridicule to 

 which they were subjected by the local Press" were 

 insuperable (I quote from an official report), and so a 

 few more thousand lives were sacrificed before the 

 master was recognised and the proffered safety accepted. 

 In Vera Cruz, in New Orleans, and in Panama yellow 

 fever has been reduced to a vanishing quantity by 

 removing the pools and tanks in which the fasciate gnat 



