The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-01
DANGEROUS CUBA.


 in Spanish Prisons.
 Especial Correspondence of the Journal and Courier.
 Washington, June 27, 1898.
 Spanish bullets are not the only dan gers our boys in Cuba will have to en- counter. First, and more to be feared than all the guns of the enemy, is the ''pestilence that walketh in darkness" One of the most noted yellow-fever centers in the West Indies-even worse than Havana-is Santiago de Cuba, it's bottled-up harbor being always fa- vorite abode of that dread disease and these midsummer months the very height of his harvest time. But Yellow Jack, so much talked about since this war began, is by no means the worse disease which will assail our brave men in Cuba Doctor Brunner, the sanitary expert, who lately left Havana, after having been several years employed there by the United States government, says that of the thirty-two thousand DpcAloii oOlolCio WilO uieu leiSI SSeil III Cuba, only 6230 died of yellow fever; twelve thousand of them were carried off by dysentery and inflammation of the intestines, and upwards of seven thousand by malarial fever. The dis eases which particularly affiict the Queen of the Antilles-in the order named as to mortality-are dysentery, malarial and typhoid fever, yellow fe- yer, smallpox, cholera and leprosy. An eminent medical authority suggests that unless we are extremely careful, our Cuban campaign may result as dis astrously as the French campaign in Madagascar three years ago. The French soldiers were all robust men, and were cared for by the best military surgeons in the world, but very large proportion of them died from malaria the few who returned to Paris being mostly convalescents. Cuba and Porto Rico are not unlike Madagascar in eli mate, the same fertile, marshy soil filled with swamps and lying to the southeast of the main land, surrounded by warm ocean currents. Everybody remembers the terrible mortality along the Chagres river in the days of '47-'49 when thousands of men took that route to California. The journey across the hyphen of land which connects the two Americas occupied only a week, but SC many died from the deadly miasmas ot the flowery jungles that ''Isthmian fe, ver'' became known as a distinct ant fatal maIady Portions of Cuba ant Porto Rico are no better to-day thai was the Isthmus of Panama in '49. O. course our army surgeons will admins ter quinine galore;-- think of the years it will take to get that poison ou of the system of the men! The univer sal Cuban custom of drinking strong black coffee, unadulterated with milk is as natural and as necessary as fo sick cats to seek grass, both being na ture's antidotes for certain ailments.
 As to smallpox, every town in th' West Indies is continually ravaged b, it; and like grim death, the loathsom disease has all seasons for his own an( loves the shining mark" of the Anglo Saxon. The natives expect it as we d humps and measles once in a lifetime and take no pains to check the spread of the disease by isolating patients Nearly everybody you meet in Cuba i more or less pitted; and infected houses public or private, are not quarantined Thorough vaccination is the only safe guard for the foreigner.
 Another unexpected bugaboo Is glar ders, a disease which in our country | confined to horses. Dr. Burgess Gan other medical expert from the Unite States who has lived Tn Cuba man, years), says that there were one hun dred and thirty-seven deaths last yea from glanders in Havana alone. As t leprosy, it is common thing to see tn scaly hand of leper outstretched fo aims, and very dangerous thing t handle public drinking cups, 'shin plaster" currency, or any article | common use among the poorer classes Even the aristocrats are not exempt.
 know a family of wealth and refine ment in Havana, one of whose severe children is a leper. The little suffere is perhaps six years old, a beautiful blue-eyed girl, whose face is yet un touched by the dreadful disease, bu her hands are scaly as the claws of bird and the nails are propping fror her fingers. She is allowed to sleep an play with the other children, to handl the same toys and bathe in the sam tub Nobody has the heart to inss upon taking the child from her parents and if he did there is no law to sustai him. The Lepers' Hospital in Havan in charge of the eminent physician, D1 Vidal de Sotolongo y Linen, has few, any, superiors in the world. l hay visited it more than once, and seen tn several hundred poor creatures, maj and female, black and white, all cleal we'll fed and well cared for, looking pos itively happy in their aff1iction. 9e there are many more, mostly beggar wandering unrestricted around til streets of Havana, there being no Spar ish law to compel the confinement ( lepers and nobody whose business it
 to induce them to take refuge in th hospital.
 Soon as Uncle Sam has rescued tf Queen of the Antilles from the clutc of Spain he will have harder task
 make her clean enough for the societ of civilized nations; and the sanitar invasion will be as expensive as tf military; but if neglected, will event. ally cost more American lives than tt war.Soon as hostilities are ended or commerce will, of course, be greatl stimulated-free trade, absolute con mercial reciprocity and all that sort (