Four reports on yellow fever in Nigeria during 1913 / by E.J. Wyler.

  • Wyler, Edwin Joseph.
Date:
[1915](repr.)
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Four reports on yellow fever in Nigeria during 1913 / by E.J. Wyler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    other similar undetected cases occurred among natives, not only after, but also antecedent to, the European case. 9. In these mild cases the virus was gaining in intensity by transmission through one or more non-immunes, either Europeans or natives, and when increased virulence had thus been gained infection of a non-immune was followed by a typical attack of the disease. As already stated, the patient had indifferent health prior to his attack by a virus which, in a person of normal resistance, might have produced only a mild and, perhaps, unrecognized manifesta- tion of the disease. If, however, the virus underwent a process of exaltation before infecting him, it must have done so through non-immune natives. 10. If this is true, an outbreak of yellow fever should be preceded by mild attacks of fever, proved not to be due to malaria, occurring in non-immune Europeans or natives, and presenting symptoms suggestive of yellow fever, such as have been shown to follow the experimental transmission of the disease. See remarks under paragraph 8. 11. The direction, therefore, to search for evidence of fevers occurring or having occurred in natives, and especially in native children, shortly before an epidemic of yellow fever requires to be supplemented by a similar direction as regards non-immunes, whether native or European. As stated in section VIII, no suspicious cases had been noted in Abeokuta previously to the patient's illness. Conceding that Cases 9 and 10 (Table 3) are instances of mild yellow fever in Lagos, actual transmission to Abeokuta of an insect infected from them, or transmission of infection via a native, has to be supposed. 12. Special enquiry be made to ascertain if natives regard certain illnesses as almost belonging to early life as what we call 'childish ailments.' The 'childish ailments' of a people represent its endemic diseases. I have been able to gain no information on the subject of such ' childish ailments,' except the description given me at Ilaro set out in section X. E. J. W. 22nd August, 1913-