The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-01-30
DOCTORS HARD At WORK
ON PREVAILING SICKNESS
Mosquitoes Found to Carry the Germ About.
New Orleans Had Forty Thousand Cases
of Dengue and Not One Fatality.

dCIlOH WHO uS6Q 10 uTedO II.
Several old settlers said yesterday
that the ''boohoo fever" as they re
membered it. differed from the dengut
in many particulars. Up to 1869 the
''boohoo" was prevalent on the Islands
more or less, but was regarded as an
extremely attenuated form of the
Chagres fever, which could not thrive
in the healthier atmosphere of the Is
lands. and, although many people had
it, none died from it 1t was in fact,
] have the 'boohoo." And its essential
feature was the extreme depression of
spirits which accompanied it.
/ By 1876 the "boohoo'' had become a
medical tradition of the Islands. Peo-
pie talked about it, but nobody had 1t
any more. In that year there was an
/ epidemic of something very like ty-
phoid, particularly bad on the Island OF
Hawaii, but no "boohoo" That fever
was supposed to have come from Pa
was prevalent in 1876 nor the "boohoo."
so far as the memory of those who were
here then goes, was accompanied by the
rash which is so distinctively charac-
teristic of the dengue.
MOSQUITO SPREADS THE FEVER.
DR.. j. T. Mcdonald, the bacteriologist
of the Board of Health, in response to
a request from the Advertiser for
pathological report of dengue, or
"breakbone" fever, has found the very
latest medical contributions on the sub
ject given by DR.. Graham, a physician
of Beyrouth, Syria, in which the mos
factor in the spread of the dengue. DR..
Mcdonald made the following written
statement:
AS to the bacteriology of dengue,
some of the text books mention a
coccus cultivated by a Texas physician
who claims" it to be the cause of the
disease, but DIR. A. c. Abbott, Profess
sor of Bacteriology in the University
of Pennsylvania, in his 'Transmlsslole
Diseases" published since then, declares
that dengue lis certainly infectious,
though no micro-organism has as yet
been proved to stand in causal relation
to it," The American Text Book OF
Pathology, and other high authorities
such as Sternberg, Parke, Mcfarland
and others make no mention whatever
of the Texan or the dengue coccus so
it would be fair to infer that his con-
illusions have not gained wide accept
anoe. Professor Abbott says that the
disease has been observed to spring up
suddenly at various points in the same
locality among persons who have had
no communication with one another,
the simultaneous infection of
large number of individuals from a
common focus or source, rather than
from person to person
The most interesting and valuable
contribution to American medical liter
ature during the past year on the sub
ject of dengue is from the pen of DR.. !
Harris Graham, Professor of Pathology, |
America College, Beyrouth, Syria, on
the eastern Mediterranean coast. That
city was recently visited by an epideo II
which began in July, 1901 and the doe
tors observations of it were published /
less than year ago. At the very be-
ginning of the epidemic and before the !
disease was recognized. the doctor in
company with eleven others was camp 1
ing up the mountain back of the city |
at an elevation of $500 feet. He had |
occasion to come down to the city. |
where he slept but one night and then .
returned to camp. Six days later he
was attacked and ran typical course
of dengue, but did not then know what
was wrong with him, as it was the
first case he had ever seen. Not one of
the other eleven in camp was attacked
although they were in daily contact 4
with and in constant attendance upon /
~
the city, reasoning by analogy from
malaria, it occurred to him that the
mosquito might have something to do
with the transmission of the disease, I
as the city was swarming with the
culex while at the mountain camp there |
were absolutely none
He then began a series of experiments
published in detail which seemed to es-
tablish the fact that by thoroughly |
barring windows and doors of a house
with netting, destroying all mosquitoes
within by chlorine gas, a dengue pa
tient in such a mosquito proof house
would go through the sickness and not
another member of the household would
be affected. This method was repeated |
with such result several times. Fur
Their, he made several experiments in
direct incubation. He hired a healthy
young native, put him into a house
where the disease had not been. took
from under the netting of a
patient sick with dengue, carried them
to and placed them under the bed net
ting of the candidate who was not al
lowed to leave the house or to re-
ceive visitors. This experiment was re-
peated several times, each and every
candidate coming down with the dis
ease in from four to six days Still an
other experiment: he collected a few
from dengue patient into
a pastebOard box; after a bath and en-
tire change of clothing went up to a
mountain village $500 feet elevation.
hired two candidates residing in diff
ferent parts of the village: the mos
lultoes were put under their nettiugs
the afternoon of Sept. Is. One can
dldate was taken i'll on the 18th. the