The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1905-08-02
A CERTAIN KIND OF MOSQUITO
The Only Transmitting Agency Of the Yellow Fever, Says
Prof. Boyer Of Tulane University:-Letter to Harlequin
Of July ~ Published Below Giving Account Of His
Personally Conducted Experiments.

HARLEQUIN
In answer to your questions:
These r the experiments which
have lead to the conclusion that a GER
tain, n kind of mosquito, is the only
transmitting agency of yellow fever.
In what l say here 1 speak on the
authority of my OWL personally con-
Quoted experiments. 1 know of my
own knowledge the facts 1 state.
The experiments were made during
two consecutive years in an original
home of yellow fever-Vera Cruz.
Men were brought from places where
no yellow fever ever existed. They
had been examined and found to be
free from any and all ailments.
They we're then taken to Vera Cruz
under absolute and complete Precau-
tons against the mosquito. They
were placed in rooms in which no
mosquitoes could have lived or were
living then.
After two weeks of continual exami-
nation, and absolute exclusion of
the mosquito, no sickness of any kind
had developed in the men. Two
QuitOes of the Notwithstanding kind
which had been allowed to feed on a
fatal case of yellow fever and which
had been kept from that time on, for
from twelve to sixteen days, in a wire
screened cage, ere permitted to sting
the men kept under observation.
| These men were stricken three days
and one hour after the mosquito bites,
with typical yellow fever. The pre-
ventiOn of fatality of the disease in
these instances was due to timely in
tervention and extraordinary ARE.
Over two summers l extended these
experiments and observations. There
was absolutely no variation from the
fact that this striped-legged and blue
winged mosquito, which will be known
to the world in time as the ''yellOw
fever mosquito" and which is now
scientifically known as, '~'stegOmyia
~fasciata,' - transmits yellow fever.
Now. After l had developed yellow
fever in two non-immunes with the
mosquitoes in the manner just. de-
scribed, l kept these yellow fever
sufferers in the same protected room
with six other men who never had yell
low fever and who therefore must have
been susceptible to it. And after three
weeks not one of them developed the
disease. These experiments, too, were
repeated variedly SO that by no pOssi-
bility could the outcome have been
chance or the disease due to any other
source of infection than the mosquito.
Also. All mosquitoes l used for
experimentation were reared and bred
from eggs and young larvae or wig
gle-tails in glass jars in the labora-
tory. The freshly Matched mosquitoes
were consequently free from the dis
ease for mosquitoes, thus reared, were
continually fed, in order to keep them
alive, on my non-immune subjects.
No subject bitten by the freshly
Matched mosquitoes ever became sick.
A freshly Matched mosquito OF that
kind fed on a known and undOubted
case of yellow fever during the third
and fourth day produced the disease
in the same men in whom he had failed
to produce it fourteen days before
that is, before having been fed on the
yellow fever sufferer.
i Other varieties of mosquitoes (eight-
cen species) which prevailed at the
time in Vera Cruz were reared and
experimental with in the same manner
as Just deserved for the yellow fever
mosquito without q single case pro-
ducing the fever.
Another experiment was made to
see whether the disease could be pro-
duced by the introduction of the caus-
alive agent into q non-immune outside
of the actual sting Of the "yellow fever
mosquito" Infected mosquitoes OF
from sixteen to nineteen days infec-
ton, mosquitoes which had produced
the disease by their sting. were
crushed, put in water and given to
other non-immunes to drink. No
development followed.
l assert unquali6edly that If two
sets of men, one hundred or one thou
sand in each body, are taken-all
non-immunes and in two w~ire-screened
cages, and . yellow fever mosquito