PART I. 



THE ORGANIZATION AND THE BUILDINGS OF THE 

 BUREAU OF GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Tropical countries which are subject to colonization by the white 

 races present conditions which are such that the settlers are con- 

 tinually exposed to infectious diseases, differing from those preva- 

 lent in colder regions, and, owing to the fact that the European races 

 in these countries have been moved from their native soil they are 

 exposed to greater dangers than the native population, which have 

 become accustomed to the surroundings. However, it is true that 

 the natives contract the same class of diseases and are subject, 

 though perhaps in a lesser degree, to the same dangers. Tropical 

 localities are especially prone to the occurrence of serious epidemics 

 both of man and of animals. In all such countries the native 

 population regard the causes of the sicknesses which afflict them 

 from a standpoint entirely different from that of the educated white 

 man. Superstition and imperfect education^ leads them to dis- 

 believe in measures which the modern scientific world has recog- 

 nized as necessary. For this reason, health boards, modeled more 

 or less after those of the mother countries but modified as to their 

 powers and duties in order to meet existing conditions, have been 

 deemed essential in all tropical colonies, but their work to a very 

 great extent would be imperfect, haphazard, and unsuccessful if the 

 methods of prophylaxis were not guided and sustained by a scien- 

 tific knowledge of the causation of disease and by accurate diag- 

 noses of the exact nature of the infections which are encountered. 

 From a material standpoint, the damage to commerce caused by 

 epidemics of cholera, plague, rinderpest, and surra is such that the 

 loss where these diseases gain a foothold by far outweighs the cost 



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