Maech 16, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



407 



{d) The vessel is then admitted to free inter- 

 course, but admits a health inspector on board, 

 who will accompany the vessel to its last Brazilian 

 port and who proceeds as follows : ( 1 ) He ex- 

 amines daily, with care, all the passengers and the 

 crew, and isolates with netting any who show 

 symptoms of fever. (2) If mosquitoes be present 

 their immediate destruction is ordered at once. 



I have cited only a few paragraphs to 

 show that the authorities have thoroughly 

 grasped the situation and their ultimate 

 success is assured. The gigantic nature of 

 their undertaking in an unsanitary sub- 

 tropical city of more than a million in- 

 habitants can hardly be conceived, and 

 their enlightened and determined efforts are 

 exciting the admiration of the scientific 

 world. With continued perseverance they 

 will eventually attain the same degree of 

 success that has been achieved in Cuba and 

 their example will be followed by the 

 smaller Central American republics. 



After four years of immunity Cuba has 

 been caught napping. According to the 

 last report of the U. S. Public Health and 

 Marine Hospital Service" she has had 

 seventy cases of yellow fever, with fifteen 

 deaths, between October 16 and December 

 17. Two of the cases were imported. Ac- 

 cording to the newspapers six additional 

 cases have been reported up to December 

 25. While the condition is serious, there 

 is no epidemic and the authorities have the 

 situation under control. The large num- 

 ber of cases relative to the deaths reported 

 shows that but few, if any, cases escape 

 detection. I feel sure that the disease will 



•of more than six days and a few hours can follow 

 a simple mosquito inoculation. In every instance 

 in which a longer period of incubation is proved 

 the subject received injections of either serum or 

 blood. These observations therefore can have no 

 practical bearing on measures directed against 

 the natural infection which is produced by the 

 mosquito alone. 



° Public Health Reports, Washington, December 

 22, 1905, p. 2,739. 



be eradicated within the next two months. 

 One or two or a few cases may appear in 

 the early spring because some of the in- 

 fected mosquitoes may escape fumigation 

 and survive through the short winter. 

 There is no reason to apprehend, however, 

 that Havana will again become seriously 

 infected. 



Although I am now two years beyond 

 the half-century mark, I think I can rea- 

 sonably expect to live to see the day when 

 yellow fever shall have been exterminated 

 from the whole American continent, and 

 that means practically from the world. 

 Let us hope that the beautiful city of New 

 Orleans will never again be devastated by 

 the American plague from which she has 

 suffered so terribly and so often. The price 

 of safety is eternal vigilance; the greatest 

 danger from yellow fever lies in the escape 

 of mild and doubtful cases. One of the 

 first to apprehend the full import of the 

 mosquito theory was Dr. Quitman Kohnke, 

 and I can recall with what pleasure I 

 listened in Washington, several years ago, 

 to his able, courageous and masterful con- 

 tention for it, before a rather unsympa- 

 thetic audience. 



In the sad experience here during the 

 past summer, we have seen an effectual 

 demonstration by the various officials under 

 Doctor White of the efficacy of measures 

 directed against the mosquito. With this 

 and the evidence already brought forward 

 by Guiteras and the French, German and 

 Marine Hospital Service commissions, it 

 should never again be necessary to contend 

 for the well-proved fact that without the 

 agency of mosquitoes there can be no yellow 

 fever. 



zEstivo-autumnul Fever — Cause, Diagno- 

 sis, Treatment and Destruction of Mos- 

 quitoes ivhich spread the Disease: H. A. 

 Veazie. r 



This fever interests the whole world, es- 



