Mosquitoes and Yellow Fever 133 



the mosquito dogma, the Crescent City marshaled her 

 defenses. This time there was no panic, no mob-rule 

 of terrified thousands, no mad rushing from stunned 

 inertia to wildly impractical action; but instead the 

 enlistment of the whole city in an army of sanitation. 

 Every citizen became a soldier of the public health. 

 And when, long before the plague-killing frost came, 

 the battle was over, New Orleans had triumphed not 

 only in the most brilliant hygienic victory ever achieved 

 in America, but in a principle for which the whole 

 nation owes her a debt of gratitude." 



For some time the authorities had been trying 

 to keep secret the fact that the disease was preva- 

 lent, but the rapidity with which it spread made 

 them realize that only united action on the part of 

 all the community would be of any avail. The 

 Citizens Volunteer Ward Organizations were or- 

 ganized for the purpose of fighting the mosqui- 

 toes which were everywhere. To many the fight 

 looked hopeless. The miles of open gutters, the 

 thousands of cisterns and little pools of standing 

 water everywhere furnished abundant breeding- 

 places for the mosquitoes. The ditches and ponds 

 were drained or salted, the cisterns were screened, 

 infected houses were fumigated, yet the fever con- 

 tinued to spread. Rains refilled the ditches, winds 

 tore the screens from the cisterns, the ignorant 



