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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



The mosquito, tried and convicted in 

 the researches of Ross and Reed, and 

 with that sentence confirmed by the 

 sanitary work in Cuba and elsewhere, 

 now came to appeal to its final court for 

 a reversal of judgment. He claimed an 

 alibi, and he proved to the minds of thou- 

 sands that he was not responsible. Hun- 

 dreds tore off the screens from their 

 houses and thousands pronounced the 

 criminal a maligned individual. Indeed, 

 the revulsion of sentiment went so far 

 that men in the highesc places were lining 

 up on the side of the mosquito. 



But Colonel Gorgas remained firm, and 

 finally former Governor Magoon came 

 upon the scene to back him up, and to 

 give him a chance, as the counsel for the 

 prosecution, to prove again the guilt of 

 the accused. For three months the trial 

 went on, and as soon as the yellow-fever 

 mosquito was banished the epidemic ter- 

 minated, and Colonel Gorgas was able to 

 offer $50 for each yellow-fever mos- 

 quito that could be brought him. Thus 

 for the last time in all medical history 

 the mosquito had his day in court and 

 was finally and forever pronounced a 

 creature beyond the pale of the law. 



Rats and mice came in for the same 

 stern measures of repression, and the re- 

 sult has been that where yesterday the 

 grim specter of death held Panama as a 

 favorite abode, today it has to seek other 

 regions for its preferred haunts. Where, 

 at the beginning of our work at Panama, 

 all the dangerous diseases in the cata- 

 logue held high carnival and gave little 

 heed to the despair of the people, today 

 one may see there a sort of combination 

 between a national tropical park and an 

 international tropical health resort. 



Every possible difficulty in the way of 

 the accomplishment of this end was en- 

 countered when the work began, and the 

 triumph has been as inspiring as the 

 situation seemed hopeless. 



THE). VICTORY OVER YELLOW JACK 



What the United States has done in 

 Panama is no more than might have been 

 expected in the light of what it had done 

 in Cuba. There Colonel Gorgas, with the 

 support of Gen. Leonard Wood, faced a 

 terrible yellow-fever situation. In 47 



years more than 35,000 residents of 

 Havana alone had died of yellow jack. 

 In a year or two yellow fever was ban- 

 ished from the island, bubonic plague 

 was gotten rid of, and smallpox came 

 under control. 



The experience of Cuba and Panama 

 has been duplicated throughout the trop- 

 ical world wherever the lessons of those 

 sanitary triumphs have been enforced 

 with proper vigor. 



Consider Brazil, which in times past 

 had come to be regarded as the natural 

 habitat of yellow fever. In the year fol- 

 lowing the discovery of the mosquito's 

 part in the transmission of that disease, 

 there were 35,000 deaths from it. The 

 wonderful influx of young men from the 

 outside world, the "conquistadors of a 

 new era of commerce," was about to be 

 checked and the development of the great 

 tropical republic set back for years. But 

 Brazil would not have it so. 



Rio got busy, a perennial clean-up day 

 was ordered, and where, in its harbor, 

 ships once had rotted because their crews 

 had died from yellow fever and none 

 could be secured to replace them, there 

 soon was not a case to be found. Thus 

 Rio, Santos, and other Brazilian cities 

 have become health resorts by contrast. 



the: fight against malaria 



What has happened with yellow fever 

 has not happened with malaria simply 

 because the world does not dread it as 

 much and will not make the thorough 

 fight against it that has been made against 

 yellow jack; and yet malaria has been a 

 greater curse to humanity through more 

 centuries than yellow fever has ever been. 



Where yellow fever has slain its hun- 

 dreds, malaria has slain its thousands. 

 It has not visited mankind as a grim 

 messenger, smiting whole nations today, 

 and tomorrow disappearing; rather its 

 onset has been so gentle and its reign so 

 persistent and so general that the public 

 mind has never been wrought to the pitch 

 necessary to its eradication. 



The fact that it results in less direct 

 suffering and fewer proportionate direct 

 fatalities than yellow fever has held the 

 fears of the people in check and has per- 

 mitted malaria to remain endemic in al- 



