378 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 584. 



our routine summer practise during the 

 danger period, and was done during the 

 past summer with negative results. 



The explosion of infection in New Or- 

 leans this year was due to an unfortunate 

 combination of unfavorable conditions, to 

 which was applied the spark of introduced 

 infection. How the fever entered the city 

 is not the official concern of the health 

 officer, who has no function or authority 

 in maritime or inland quarantine. When 

 it got here, however, it found ideal factors 

 for its development and spread. The sec- 

 tion of the city first infected is the most 

 densely populated, the people are for the 

 most part ignorant of our language and 

 illiterate in their own. Their habits are 

 unsanitary and their customs such as tend 

 to secretiveness and improvidence. They 

 are not, as a rule, vicious, but fearful of 

 police authority, and exceedingly clannish; 

 as is not unnatural for foreigners in a 

 strange country. Medical attention in case 

 of illness is usually delayed until the se- 

 verity of symptoms demands it, and any 

 but severe ailments are likely to be followed 

 by recovery without medical interference. 

 They are attended when ill mainly by 

 physicians of their own nationality, some 

 of whom are unfamiliar with yellow fever. 

 They are apt to resent the reporting of any 

 case of communicable disease to the au- 

 thorities, and are likely to dismiss the at- 

 tending physician for this reason. Imagine 

 a crowded population of this kind whose 

 water supply consists in large part of river 

 water, kept for settling purposes in numer- 

 ous open barrels, each one an ideal breed- 

 ing place for the Stegomyia mosquito. 



For more than four years the health of- 

 ficer, encouraged and supported by the 

 board of health, had pointed out the dan- 

 ger; had explained, urged, begged and 

 prophesied, but other considerations were 

 deemed of greater importance than the 

 destruction of mosquitoes. When the dis- 



aster came, however, the people of New 

 Orleans, awakened from a lethargic sense 

 of security, rose to the situation and dem- 

 onstrated their willingness and ability to 

 fight the greatest battle that was ever 

 waged against yellow fever; and they con- 

 quered. The united forces of the combined 

 authorities of city, state and nation and the 

 whole people of New Orleans succeeded in 

 turning a great calamity into the most 

 glorious victory of modern times. For the 

 first time in New Orleans an epidemic of 

 yellow fever was fought with the weapons 

 suggested by the doctrine of mosquito con- 

 veyance of the disease, and for the first 

 time extensive yellow fever was controlled 

 as early as August. 



The first victory over yellow fever was 

 in Havana, the greatest in New Orleans. 



The pictures exhibited show the charac- 

 ter of the neighborhood first infected, its 

 nearness to the landing place of the Havana 

 steamers (I do not claim, however, that our 

 infection came from Havana) and the 

 facility with which infection could have 

 gotten, and probably did get, to the lug- 

 gers, the landing place for which is in close 

 proximity; these luggers being connecting 

 links with the gulf coast of Louisiana. 



Suspicion was directed to this neighbor- 

 hood of the city about the middle of July, 

 but subsequent knowledge indicated the 

 real beginning of yellow fever infection to 

 have been probably several weeks earlier. 

 At no time in the history of New Orleans 

 did an epidemic of yellow fever begin to 

 decrease as early as did the latest and we 

 hope and believe the last one. 



Never before was an epidemic of yellow 

 fever in New Orleans fought in the same 

 way, and the most skeptical of reasonable 

 persons must conclude that the control of 

 what would have been one of the greatest 

 of yellow-fever epidemics was due solely 

 to the prevention and destruction of mos- 

 quitoes. 



