The National tribune., 1898-05-12
4 DREAD NALADY.
Yellow Fever, the Scourge Of
Spanish-America.

Originated On tho Coast OF Africa-Habsns
Focus for It-Municipal Cleanliness
Would Starve Out the Disease-HOw In.
lection May Be Avoided.
Yellow fever is filth disease. Born in
the Sweltering foulness of the African
coast, it was ferried across by noisome
Slavers, and is now nursed and kept alive
only by the illimitabIe filthiness of the
Spanish American. One of the most i'm
| portant results likely to flow from ouT
present war is the chance it will give us
| 20 take and clean up Habana. This is a
| result in itself almost sufficient to justify
| the war, considering the amount of danger,
| worry and expense Habana annually
| causes our Gull States. Unfortunately the
| e )od cleansing will do will be merely tenn
! porary, if the present program holds and
| we give over Cuba to the insurgents. The
| are like the rest of their race, and Will
| probably lose no time in restoring a con-
| genial state of disorder and general dirt.
| When enlightened public sanitation be-
| comes universal, yellow fever and other
| like diseases, such as cholera and typhoid,
will probably disappear.
| ORIGIN OF THE FEVER.
Yellow fever originated somewhere on
| the tropical coast of Africa, in all proba-
| biIity at Sierra Leone. At present it IS
! practically confined to the Atlantic coast
of North and South America and of Africa
| portant foci of the disease, the towns where
| it is endemic, are Habana and Vera Cruz,
on the Gulf, and PernambucO and RlO de
| Janeiro, on the Atlantic. In late years it
has crept around to the Pacific coast OF
Mexico as far north as GuaymaS. $50
lated epidemcs have been known in Peru,
| Spain, and in nearly every Atlantic coast
town of any size from Boston to Monte
videO. 1t has also occurred on the Mis-
sissippi and its tributaries, sporadically.
met
line, and still more rarely navigable water.
Habana harbor is said to be the foulest
piece of water on the face of the globe.
The city lies on bottles shaped bay, into
which for centuries has been poured the
sewage and miscellaneous debris of a large
and dirty population. There is little tide,
and the bottom of the bay is silted up 20 or
80 feet deep with slime. The city itself
presents a spectacle almost incOnceivable
to anyone who does not know the Spanish.
Ard the Habanese are worthy of their
parentage. 1t Will not be an unmixed evil
should BIanco bum the town before sur
rendering.
There is no inherent reason why Habana
should be more unhealthy than Key West
or Florida, 100 miles to the north; but it is.
Yellow fever occurs more or less all the
year AS soon as Summer opens and our
Gulf towns become liable to the incursiOn
of the fever, we are compelled, IN self
protection, to put up the quarantine bars
During the Summer, not passenger nom
Spanish America is allowed to land in
New Orleans. And this means expense
and loss of trade. Naturally, in spite of all
precautiOn, yellow fever occasionally
sneaks in, and then there are interstate
and interurban q3arantines, general
Panic, and loss apd trouble in countless
directions. All this, Or the major portion
of it could be saved by cleaning up Ha-
bana, and inducing Mexico to do the like
To To ILL, illustrate ; the effect of municipal
cleanliness on yellow fever need only be
cited New Orleans; Yellow fever cannot
become endemic, n Chat Is. regularly 10,
ca ed, } in New Orleans, because the annual
frosts kill it. But it can be, and is, i'm
ported every Sum}ner., There were 4S cpl
denies in New Orleans in the first so years
of the century. Then the city began to
clean up little and was spared some
what. Finally, during the war, Butler got
hold of the town and gave it drastic
cleansing. The effect of this lasted for
some years, by which time better and
cleaner class OF riien came into the city,
forcing the Creoles into the background,
where uncleanly people belong. Nova
days New Orleans is not much behind
New York as regards healthfulness.
DISEASE RARE an HIGH ATTITUDES.
Yellow fever is prominently a disease
of the sea coast, as before stated. Inland
cities are seldom attacked As a rule it
confines its attentions to large towns. Nor
will it 90 above a certain hight above sea
level Speaking generally, localities more
than co feet above tide are safe from at
tack. "ke limit in the West Indies Is
general placed at 200. The highest point
in the United States ever attacked was
745 feet Chattanooga.