INFECTIOUS JAUNDICE 65 



after the injection of salvarsan. Galyl and other arsenical sub- 

 stitutes for' salvarsan are also effective against the disease. 



The suppression of yaws in communities where it is common 

 consists largely in affording isolated hospitals or houses for 

 yaws patients and in preventing the patients by proper care and 

 treatment from spreading the disease by contagion. Personal 

 care on the part of the patient is often more than could be 

 expected, considering that yaws is most common among half- 

 civilized and ignorant tropical races. However, the lure of a 

 comfortable and congenial ward where he could get good treat- 

 ment would undoubtedly induce many a native to submit to the 

 practice of being sanitary, however it might grate upon his nerves 

 at first. His accounts of the good treatment received would 

 help in luring others, and what few ideas of sanitation he might 

 have retained would help in spreading the gospel of sanitation. 

 In this way the prevalence of the disease, at least in local areas, 

 could be greatly reduced, and public money used for such pur- 

 poses could be considered well spent. 



Infectious Jaundice or Weil's Disease 



In parts of Europe and in Japan, and also reported from various 

 parts of North America, there occurs a disease characterized 

 especially by fever and jaundice (i.e., affection of the liver causing 

 a marked sallow color due to bile pigments in the blood), the cause 

 of which has long been a puzzle to medical men. It has often 

 been confused with yellow fever and with bilious typhoid, and it 

 is not certain even now that the latter is not a very severe type of 

 Weil's disease. Early in 1915 the connection of a new species 

 of spirochsete, Sp. icterohmmorrhagice, with the disease was dis- 

 covered by two Japanese investigators, Inada and Ido. Later 

 in the same year, and independent of the Japanese work, the same 

 organism was discovered in Germany in connection with Weil's 

 Disease, the German investigators suggesting the name Sp. 

 nodosa. One could almost wish that the German name had been 



given first! 



The Disease. — A week or more after infection the first symp- 

 toms appear rather suddenly in the form of headache, high 

 fever, and a feeling of leaden fatigue in the legs which soon 

 changes to intense pains. The muscles become so tender that 



