New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-08-02
YELLOW J4CK,S DOWNFALL.

Yellow Jack for generations the king of all
our fever scOurges has been at last dethroned.
Since the American occupation Of Cuba this
dread monarchs sway has been more and more
disputed. In Santiago and in Havana his reign
was rudcly challenged. Familiarity with the
disease and the conditions under which it -four
ished gradually robbed it of many real and
many imaginary terrOrs. Cuba was freed from
yellow fever But more than that. the pail of
ignorance which had hung over the genesis
of the disease partly lifted and the whole
sale panic it once caused was checked and
halted
The experiments of tie army surgeons in Ha-
vana upset many fixed beliefs. They dssi-
pated the common notion that yellow fever
was n mysterious filth disease due chiefly to
neglected sanitation. They also exploded the
accepted theory that Yellow Jack was communi-
cable by contact-that it was one of the most
readily infectious of the fever plaques What
the medical experts of the army discovered in
Havana was that yellow fever could be spread
and was spread-by an intermediary agent
namely, the mosquito. That it was spread
through the mosquito alone they guessed, per-
Eaps, rather than established
1t has been left to the Public Health and
Marine Hospital Service to push the investiga-
lions conducted in Cuba a step further and to
between who can, and does, propagate yellow
fever. After long and careful study of con-
ditions in Vera Cruz-a port which is rarely
free at any time from yellow fever cases-the
Marine Hospital Service surgeons think they
have pinned down the spread of Yellow Jack to
this single agency.
In The Washington Post the other day one
of the members of Surgeon General Wyman's
staff was quoted declaring, yellow fever IS
now plaything," and i'll support of this asser-
ton The Post" reproduced these three propo-
sitionS, said to have been established by the
Vera Cruz researches:
First-That the cause of yellow fever is an ami
t e4iuh parasite and not vegetable germ or bae-
Second That the disease is communicated only
by the bite of mosquitoes.
Third--That only one genus of mosquitoes. which
the yellow fever parasite
If the experiments made by the Marine Hos
pital Service can be accepted as conclusive vel
low fever has seen the last of its mysterious
terrors brushed away 1t will be left it's con-
queroTs to study the development of the mos
quito parasite and to devise 4 means of neutral
izing its ravages y war of determination will
also have to be waged on the species of mos
quito which harborS the yellow fever parasite
thus continuing Il crusade wisely begun several
years ago by the Havana health authorities
jacksonville Key West, Tampa. New-OrleaDs.
brownsville and GalveSton-aH of them CEN
tres where yellow fever has ragged fferceIv in
the pust-are said still 10 be infested with These
intermediary agents, while other Southern
ports. such as Charleston, Savannah Brunswick
and Mobile have been practically cleared of the
offending species.
If the Public Health Services case AGAINST
the parasite bearing mosquito is made out we
may look before long fer a beneficial relaxa
ton OF quarantine restrictions in force for six
months of each year III our Southern seaports.
as well rs the cessation of vexatious and costly
yellow fever ranics along our Southern coast