REDKIOIIXG TIT]-: TROPICS 



345 



ns through the l^aticnt and herriic wMirk 

 of a group of arin\- siir^cinis ; we sec 

 cities lilce Havana and Rio de Janeirij 

 transformed from pest-holes into munici- 

 palities "where epidemic diseases are under 

 control. 



Today thousands, nay millions, of hu- 

 man souls living between Cancer and 

 Capricorn are being freed from the tlirall- 

 dom of those terrible visitations that came 

 periodically only a few 3'ears ago. Africa 

 is rising up against the terrible sleeping 

 sickness and the insidious malaria that 

 have made it the "Dark Continent" for 

 generations without number. 



"Wherever we turn we find places where 

 once a man gamljled with death when he 

 ^'isited them being converted into regions 

 w here good health conditions exist. Pre- 

 \enti\e medicine ever}'where, and in the 

 tropics in particular, is writing a new 

 geograph}- of inhabitable territory and of 

 commercial opportunity. 



AMiere yesterday the barriers of dis- 

 ease were up against the peaceful and 

 resource-developing invasion of capital 

 and enterprise, there today is found 

 health and happiness and prosperity. 

 Where yesterday a man going to the 

 tropics, even for a shdrt sta}', was bid- 

 den good-bye by his friends as one who 

 stood an even chance of ne^-er returning, 

 today men and women go there for long 

 periods ; and in some places are quite as 

 safe as at home, and in hundreds of 

 others only a little less so. 



IHn\' IT AIX IIArPKNED 



Truh- the story of how all this has 

 been brought about is the world's most 

 splendid exem]5lification of the proverb 

 that truth is stranger than ficti(">n. For 

 hundreds of years man stood helpless and 

 appalled in the face of the onset of great 

 epidemics. He saw millions of his fel- 

 low-beings visited with deaths more hor- 

 ri1)le than ever torture chamber could 

 invent, but not knowing whence the af- 

 fliction came or whither it went. He sur- 

 mised and guessed, and finally saw a cer- 

 tain relation between dirt and disease, 

 and gradually the elimination of dirt 

 checked the ravages of some epidemic 

 diseases. 



Then came the microscope with its dis- 

 coverv of infinitesimal worlds, and with 



it Pasteur and his (hsco\-ei-v of the rela- 

 tion Ijetween jjacteria and disease. One 

 by one new germs were discovered, ami 

 soon medical men came to understand 

 the methods of the transmission of most 

 uf the epidemic diseases of temperate 

 climates. 



vStill no (jne knew the cause of the 

 epidemic diseases most characteristic of 

 the tropics, and without this knowledge 

 no satisfactor}' superstructure of pre\-cnl- 

 i\-e tropical medicine could be reared. 

 Tropical humnnit)' \\-as attac]<ed b\- m\-r- 

 iads of enemies so subtle that men did nut 

 know even that the)- existed, and yet so 

 terril)le that the carnage of the world's 

 battlefields paled in com]iarison. 



For centuries on end men had been 

 see]<ing after the trutli of the causation 

 of 3'ellow fe\-er, bubonic plague, sleeping 

 sickness, and allied diseases. Some of 

 them had nearlv guessed it. Sir Henry 

 lUake tells of having seen a medical woric 

 in Ceylon, some 1,400 3'ears old, \\hich 

 charged the mosquito with being a carrier 

 of malaria. The word canopy itself was 

 brought into the language from a Greelc 

 word meaning gnat. 



WHY TIIIv CAT ^^•AS WORSHIPED 



There \\-ere many strangeh' close 

 guesses at the cause of disease in the 

 earh' histor3' of tlie human race. Far 

 back in Egyptian histor3r the people came 

 so near to guessing the cause of plague 

 that they made the cat a sacred animal. 

 They noticed that where there were cats 

 there was no bubonic plague, and if tbe3' 

 had onl3' stojiped to think a little further 

 the)' might ha^■e seen that where there 

 were cats the rats were scarce. But this 

 relation did not strike them, so they ^vent 

 on worshipping the cat, and thinking that 

 it was the animal's supernatural power 

 that saved them from contracting plague. 



The honor of having written the first 

 modern work charging the mosquito with 

 being a responsible agent in the spread 

 of yellow and malarial fevers belongs to 

 an American, Dr. Nott, of Mobile, Ala- 

 bama. In 1848 he pulilished a treatise 

 upon A'ellow fe^'er in which he charged 

 the mosquito with the crime of spread- 

 ing these diseases. A little later Dr. T.ouis 

 EeauperthuA', stud)'ing an epidemic of 

 A'ellow fe\'er in A'cnezuela, also laid the 



