130 
THE STANDARD GUIDE. 
patient was at first rigidly isolated, and immediately upon the report a 
force of men from the sanitary department visited the house. All the 
rooms of the building and of the neighboring houses were sealed and 
fumigated to destroy the mosquitoes present. Window and door screens 
were put up, and after death or recovery of the patient, his room was 
fumigated and every mosquito destroyed. A war of extermination was 
also waged against mosquitoes in general, and an energetic effort was 
made to diminish the number bred by draining standing water, screening 
tanks and vessels, using petroleum on water that could not be drained, 
and in the most systematic manner destroying the breeding places of the 
insects. 
“When the warm season returned a few cases occurred, but by Septem¬ 
ber, 1901, the last case of yellow fever originated in Havana, since which 
time the city has been entirely exempt from the terrible disease that had 
there kept stronghold for a hundred and fifty years. 
“The destruction of the most fatal epidemic disease of the western hemi¬ 
sphere in its favorite home city is but the beginning of the benefit to man¬ 
kind that may be expected to follow the work of Reed and his associates. 
There can be no manner of doubt should Mexico, Brazil, and the Central 
American Republics, where the disease still exists, follow strictly the exam¬ 
ple set by Havana, that yellow fever will become extinct and the United 
States forever freed from the scourge, that has in the past slain thousands 
of our citizens and caused the loss of untold treasure.” 
The Cortina de Valdes is a small park on the water front at the foot 
of Empedrado and Chacon streets, overlooking the harbor. In the old 
times it was a favorite promenade. The fountain was restored in 1900 by 
the Americans, who parked what was then an unkempt waste, mounted the 
cannon on carriages, and made the place attractive. 
Cubans call a person by a sound of the tongue and lips—P-s-t—some¬ 
thing like a hiss, after the fashion of some parts of the continent of 
Europe. "I have no doubt if a fire was to break out at the next door, a 
Cuban would call 'P-s-t,’” wrote Dana. They summon a person to come 
to them by the reverse of our motion. 1 hey raise the open hand with the 
palm outward, bending the fingers toward the person they are calling, a 
gesture which we should interpret to go away. 
The custom of powdering the face is practically universal with Cuban 
women, and prevails to some extent among the men; the favorite cosmetic, 
called cascarilla, is made of finely pulverized egg shells. It is applied so 
lavishly that the effect is sometimes ghastly. 
