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Show THE SCOURGE OF YELLOW FEVER. One of the' two important things in the pubMc "mind'at this hour is the presence of yellow fever at New Orleans. The other is the peace conference. confer-ence. Of the two, perhaps the reading public is more interested as to what will turn up at Portsmouth Ports-mouth than what is going on at New Orleans. Yet it is "within the memory of most of us that yellow fever carried off more victims to hastily improvised graves than any epidemic that ever scourged this country. This happened throughout the gulf states and Tennessee about twenty years ago. Why are we so indifferent about yellow fever now? Twenty years ago the islands of the gulf and Carribean .sea were owned by Spain, and were at all times hotbeds of pestilence. Neither were the countries of South America immune. From these came the germs of yellow fever into this country, taking root first at New Orleans because it was the principal city on the gulf for traffic with fever tainted countries, and because New Orleans 'itself by reason of its topography and unsanitary condition con-dition invited epidemic. . - The plague spread to Memphis, and in- this- city on the Mississippi it wrought the greatest, destruction. destruc-tion. Is 0 home was safe, no escape possible One could imagine-the destroying angel going about to, slaughter the first-born in the houses of Israel. Deeds of heroism and sacrifice were enacted that elevated man in the estimation of his kind and wiped out the sins of the half -world. The act of' the harlot who closed her house to vice, turned it into a hospital and risked her own life in the service of nurse, recalls the Magdalen of Judea. This was twenty years ago. Since then Cuba has been wrested from Spain and' Havana made clean. New Orleans fumigated and improved its alleys and dumping places. Memphis, when the fever left it, set up the broom as the emblem of progress and safety. Leaving out the anguish it caused, the yellow fever epidemic was the best thing that could happen to Memphis. It is now the cleanest clean-est city in the country. The time has passed when yellow fever should excite undue alarm. Science has discovered its cause, and science has learned to deal with and exterminate the cause. It simply comes from the bite of a-peculiar mosquito, "the Stegomyia. According Ac-cording to the New Orleans Picayune, some of these insects were brought to the city in cargoes of fruit from Central America, as doubtless they have been carried to Mobile and other fruit ports, and they ' stung some of the workmen who unloaded the ships. The mosquitos being here, the business of science sci-ence is to kill them, and this is being done at New Orleans. Cisterns are being screened and oiled, gutters and cesspools are being oiled, and all . infected in-fected or supposed infected premises are being fumigated fu-migated with sulphur. Houses are screened and mosquito bars are in general use. The people themselves them-selves are protected by anointing hands and faces wiiu a lotion maae ot alcohol and such essential oils as pennyroyal, lavendar, cedar, and the like. It might not be a bad notion to try that remedy for the mosquito nuisance even in this part of the country. It is admitted by medical authority that every time the insect draws blood from one person it is likely to impart the virus of disease in the next sufferer it visits, assuming the first person bitten to be afflicted by blood disorder. . The sjime reasoning, might be applied, (and we believe it has been advanced), concerning the house fly. ... |
