i8 YELLOW FEVER PROPHYLAXIS IN NEW ORLEANS 



The First Steps in the Campaign and the Organisation 

 OF THE Resources of the City to Combat the Disease. 



On Friday, July 2ist, a meeting of the State and City Boards of 

 Health, the representatives of the Public Health and Marine Hospital 

 Service, and Health Officers from surrounding States, was convened 

 by Drs. Le Boeuf and McGruder in order to reassure the public and 

 to check the stringent and onerous quarantine precautions which 

 had, on the rumours of the presence of Yellow Fever, been promptly 

 taken by the surrounding States against New Orleans, although 

 as yet no official declaration had been made. As an example of this 

 promptitude, it is worthy of note that the State of Mississippi had 

 issued a quarantine ordinance on the day of the meeting. Shortly 

 after the meeting on Friday the first step in general medical organi- 

 sation was taken by the appointment on the following day, July 22nd, 

 of an Advisory Board consisting of the Chairman, Dr. Le Boeuf, 

 and three other members of the New Orleans Medical Society, viz., 

 Drs. Callan, Magruder and CEchsner. This Committee was appointed 

 to co-operate with the Health Authorities and to help to the best of 

 their judgment in the campaign ahead of them. It was now fully 

 recognised by these representative medical men that much valuable 

 time had already been lost, and that the prophylactic measures which 

 had up to this time been adopted by the Health Authorities -^ere 

 neither sufficiently extensive nor precise. I cannot refrain from 

 drawing attention to the fact that during the week or more which 

 elapsed before the official notification was made, that there rests with 

 the Health Authorities during that period, the grave suspicion that 

 this want of prompt notification might have enabled infected Italians 

 and others from the infected quarters to have left the City by steam 

 or rail to spread infection elsewhere. The failure of New Orleans 

 in this respect emphasizes what every International Sanitary Conven- 

 tion had drawn attention to, namely, the necessity of prompt notifica- 

 tion of Yellow Fever. Without ^his, international and interstate 

 sanitary laws cannot be administered in accordance with science, 

 wisely and humanely. 



On the evening of the- 22nd the Advisory Committee, the Medical 

 Officer of Health, and Dr. White, having deliberated together, issued 

 the first authoritative and collective pronouncement upon the precau- 



