YELLOW FEVER HOUSES 19 



granite sets and gravel ballast have been consigned to 

 the deep, lest an epidemic should break out were they 

 landed. It is almost impossible to realise to-day the 

 incubus which this nightmare has been upon the world's 

 progress. In the old days, the young man, be he 

 soldier, sailor, or young merchant, went to what was 

 known as the " white man's grave." The result was that 

 in many instances only the wilder ones who could not 

 succeed at liome went to what was regarded as almost 

 certain death ; and indeed it often was, when one 

 recollects, as shown in the mortality statistics of fifty 

 years ago, that amongst the British garrisons 69 per 

 cent, was not an infrequent mortality rate ! 



Further, the nightmare even spread to houses and 

 barracks, and men spoke of " yellow fever houses " with 

 bated breath, just as children do of haunted houses. 

 It does seem strange that in this the twentieth century 

 similar superstitions still survive ; nevertheless they do, 

 as those whose duty it is to teach the present-day 

 methods of health preservation only too well know. I 

 reproduce a picture of a so-called yellow fever house. 

 It was supposed that if any one was so foolhardy as 

 to sleep in one, yellow fever was certain to result. No 

 words of mine could describe the loss of life and goods 

 and the curtailment of civiHsation which this niglit- 

 mare of the tropics has brought about. 



But is there any foundation for this behef, which 

 has so deeply grafted itself upon mankind ? None 

 whatever. The damp vapour or the small quantity of 

 marsh gas or sulphuretted hydrogen which could come 

 from a tropical marsh is absolutely unable to give 



