YELLOW FEVER PROPHYLAXIS IN NEW ORLEANS tg 



tions which were necessary to be adopted. The manifesto runs as 

 follows : — 



An emergency exists in our City to-day which demands the attention of every 

 individual, with the view to limiting and preventing the spread of epidemic disease. 

 It has been scientifically proved that the mosquito is the only means of the transmis- 

 sion of Yellow Fever, and measures should be especially directed against them. It is 

 especially urged by the undersigned that the following simple directions be followed 

 by the householders of this City for the summer months :— 



First. — Empty all unused receptacles of water. Allow no stagnant water on the 

 premises. 



Second. — Screen cisterns, after placing a small quantity of insurance oil (a tea- 

 cupful in each cistern) on the surface of the water. 



Third. — Place a small quantity of insurance oil in cesspools or privy vaults. 



Fourth. — Sleep under mosquito nets. 



Fifth. — Screen doors and windows wherever possible with fine screen wire, 



(Signed) Quitman Kohnke, 



Health Officer. 



J. H. White, 



Surgeon, U.S.P.H. and M.H.S. 



Advisory Committee, 



Orleans Parish Medical Society. 



On the same day the authorities, reahsing that New Orleans was 

 . unprovided with a Fever Isolation Hospital, took steps to acquire an 

 old house in the infected quarter in the Itahan district. It seems, of 

 course, very extraordinary that in the twentieth century and in a Port 

 of the great importance and size of New Orleans that no proper 

 provisj^on should have existed for the isolation of infectious cases. 

 There is no doubt now, however, after having paid dearly for their 

 experience, that the Citizens of New Orleans will not in future allow 

 this defect to go unremedied. 



The Hospital received its first patients on July 26th, and in spite 

 of the fact that it was placed in the midst of most insanitary sur- 

 roundings and overcrowded, it, nevertheless, answered its purpose 

 very well, owing to the very rigid precautions against the possibility 

 of mosquitoes becoming infected from the patients. It was, indeed, a 

 most striking demonstration of the harmlessness of the disease in the 

 absence of the Stegomyia ; several non-immunes, including myself, 

 spent a portion of each day in the wards, but in no instance did infec- 

 tion arise. The entrance to all the wards was barred by double 

 screened doors, so that one set of doors were closed before the second 

 set were opened. A few weeks after the opening of this hospital, 

 it became necessary to change into another temporary makeshift. 



