The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-09-29
HOPE INCREASING.
Better News of the Situation In
Florida.

@Anoh6 thC AOhOACu QCdu ID LII. IL. Il. LQuy,
Lanesyille, who died at the medical bureau
this afternoon. He was one Of the volun-
teer physicians who came to give his services
free of charge. Three new cases were re-
ported at McClenney today and one death.
Ihere were no new cases or suspects at
GAINESVILLE, today. 1t Is believed now that
there is no yellow fever in Florida except at
Jacksonville, Fernandina, McClenney, San
dersOn, Gainesville, Tampa and Manattee.
except, perhaps, sporadic cases near the
places named. A splendid orange crop is
ripening There can be no danger in send
ing to market In fumigated cars.
Edison's Researches.
NEW YORK, Sept. %. Thomas A. Edison,
the inventor, since the middle of the month
has been conducting series of experiments
in order to discover some cheap and effective
way to destroy the germs of yellow fever
THAT the germs are carried in the air is
ridiculous idea, because the fever would at
once spread all over a district" he said to
reporter yesterday. "And just as plainly
are the germs organic and not inorganic, be-
cause their spread is always stopped by the
coming Of cold weather. ! am therefore
forced to one of two conclusions-either the
fever germs must be animal organisms or
they must be fungus growths.
Il believe that the fever microbes are
parasites which crawl along the ground, as
in several instances their spread has been
known to have been stopped by street pave
ments. first began experimenting in 1873
to find some chemicals to destroy the
Colorado beetles. l tried every kind of
chemical substance on the beetles and found
gasoline to be the most effective. As we
have not had yellow fever germs, we have
been experimenting on insects which are
extremely tenacious of life. A glass jar was
hlled with moulding sand and at depths of
Z, 10, l9, "a, 26 and 30 centimetres from the
surface, little cell prisons were made with
their open ends against the glass. Ants
were placed in these cells and a layer of
gasoline .06 centimetres in thickness was
poured on the surface of the sand. The
centimetre ants died at the end of Is min
utes. the!16's at the,end of 10 minutes, the19's
after 40 minutes, and in three hours all were
apparently dead except the lowest or 80 GEN.
timetre ants. which appeared stupeied.
However, the mex. morning the three lowest
grades had recovered. Satisfactory expert
ments were also made on clans, earthworms
and cheese mites.
"The only way to stop the spread of the
disease is to put Gordon of gasoline around
the infected place. II that don't stop it,
a street 25O feet long by 60 feet broad with
gasoline, and that would kill everything in
the soil. Caustie soda should be used in
damp places. A square yard could be Gov
cred with caustic soda to depth of one
eighth of an inch for l IL cents, and no
organism could possibly survive it. In
room heated to SO degrees Fahrenheit, coat
was dipped in rhigoline, and in fifteen min
utes the temperature of the coat fell to %
degrees and the coat was covered with hoar
frost Now, as cold weather is known
effectually to destroy the fever microbes.
this would prove an effective way of disin-
fecting clothing as the rhigoline will
evaporate within half an hour.
Experiment has shown that after the
gasoline has been applied for ten minutes it
soaks into the soil and there is no danger of
its becoming ignited. A whole year has been
wasted, which should have been given to
experiments on the means of checking yellow
fever at the South. / shall have a micro
scope costing sl.5Oo or q: 600 in few days
where the fever broke out in Decatur and
Gainesville had at once been surrounded by
Gordon of gasoline or caustic soda, $500
expended in this way in each place would
have prevented the panic"