Yellow fever : a compilation of various publications: results of the work of Maj. Walter Reed, Medical Corps, United States Army, and the Yellow Fever Commission.

  • United States. Congress. Senate.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Yellow fever : a compilation of various publications: results of the work of Maj. Walter Reed, Medical Corps, United States Army, and the Yellow Fever Commission. 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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    YELLOW FEVER. and vessels using petroleum on water that could not be drained and Ssectsm0 Syst6matlC manner destl^g the breeding? placL of^ne When the warm season returned a few cases ooohtw] W w q„„ which tune the city has been entirely exempt from the terri&e dis- ease, that had there kept stronghold for 150 years. Cases are now admitted into Habana from Mexican ports, but are treated under screens with perfect impunity, m the ordinary city hospitals. The crusade agamst the insects also caused a very large decrease in mala- rial levers. The destruction of the most fatal epidemic disease of the Western Hemisphere, in its favorite home city is but the beginning of the benefit to mankind 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, lollow strictly the example set by Habana, that yellow fever will become extmct 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. More recent investigations into the cause and spread of yellow fever have only succeeded in verifying the work of Reed and his commission m every particular and in adding very little to our knowl- edge of the disease. Later researches by Guiteras in Habana, by the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service in Vera Cruz, and lastly by a delegation from the Pasteur Institute of Paris in Rio de Janeiro, all confirm in the most convincing manner both the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the conclusions of the American commission. It has been well said that Reed's experiments will always remain as models in the annals of scientific research, both for the exactness with which they were adapted to the points to be proved, and the precautions taken that no experiment should be vitiated by failure to exclude all possible sources of error. Appreciation of Reed's work was instant in the scientific world. Honorary degrees from Harvard University and the University of Michigan were conferred upon him, learned societies and distinguished men delighted to honor him, and after his death Congress voted a special pension to his widow. To the United States the value of his services can not be estimated. Ninety times has yellow fever invaded the country, carrying death and destruction, leaving poverty and grief. New Orleans, Memphis, Charleston, Galveston, Portsmouth, Balti- more, Philadelphia, New York, and many smaller towns have been swept by the disease. The epidemic of 1853 cost New Orleans 8,000 lives, that of 1793 wiped out 10 per cent of Philadelphia's population. The financial loss to the United States m the one epidemic of 1878 was estimated as amounting to $15,335,000, but suffering, panic, fear, and the tears of widows and orphans can never be estimated. Now, however, if yellow fever should again cross our southern border, there need be no disturbance of commerce or loss of prop- erty in the slightest degree comparable with that which epidemics in the past have caused.