PREVENTION 139 



RATIONALE OF 'JlIE CHIEF PREVENTIVE 



MEASURES 



I. To Diminish and Control the Reservoirs, i.e. to Prevent 



Man SIFFFERING FROM THE DiSEASE BECOMING A DiSSEMINATOR OF 



THE Disease, 



1. Early notijicaiiou and diagnosis necessary in 

 order to isolate the reservoirs as soon as possible. 



Careful inquiry into the origin of the numerous 

 epidemics all over the yellow fever zone proves con- 

 clusively that yellow fever has usually gained a firm 

 foothold before the first cases are notified. 



In some Central American ports this will prove for 

 a considerable time to come a perpetual source of 

 danger, for the inhabitants of these districts are likely 

 to be more indifi^erent to the disease, and therefore to 

 be less careful about notification. No doubt this is 

 also the reason why it is laid such stress upon in 

 the opening articles of the A^^ashington Convention of 

 1905. Commercial reasons, it is alleged, may some- 

 times operate to hold back notification, but the numer- 

 ous bitter lessons have shown that the risk of the losses 

 brought about by allowing the fever to gain a head 

 is too great. In a modern city swarming with the 

 stegomyia a concealed case must sooner or later make 

 itself manifest, and by the time it does so the total 

 volume of mosquito infection will be so great that 

 serious disaster is inevitable. Commercial and civic 

 authorities now commence to realise this, so that the 

 danger from suppression of the facts is diminishing. 

 More often the Joss of time in early notification is due 



