Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-12
DISEASE S OIL D|ERS
Who Wage War Against the
Dreaded yellow Jack"
FIGHTING THE GERMS
SOMETHING ABOUT THE PUBLIC
HEALTH SERVICE.
Has Guarantees for Coast Defenses,
Hospitals for Land Posts, De-
tention Camps, Etc.
FIGHTING THE GERMS

Copyright. 1905. by John Elfreth Watknsl
Yellow jack. with his army of virulent mi
crobes. has again forced our postern gate
at New Orleans. and we are barking back
to the grim summer of '7S when he killed
120DO Of our citizens and disabled 125 900.
But the generation that has since come into
being has seen our then shaky. widely scat
tered defenses against foreign pestilence
displaced by a chain of fortresses well-nigh
impenetrable and an auxiliary system of
barriers which. once drawn about an IN
vaded area, cannot be passed unless the law
IS maliciously defied.
The disease soldiers of the Treasury De-
partments reorganized public health and
marine hospital service have their coast
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS guarantees lining
our seaboard. They have their land posts
twenty-five hospitals and 12i relief sta
lions. Then too. they have their foot SOL
diers and field artillery, all organized under
uniformed officers as fearless the mill
tary men who fight the visible foe, less
treaCherous. Moreover, they have their
camps OF tents; their attaches. alert in for
egn lands: their smart fleet of war vessels
which dart out TO challenge the demon
pestiIence before Il may have an oppor-
tunity TO land. And the result has been
that-aIthough Yellow Jack gained foot
hold In the New England ports in years
back, that. whereas In the nineteenth CEN
fury the years when he did not ravage our
shores somewhere could be counted upon
your ingers-this years successful attack
IS counted an exception and no one
fears its spread.
How these disease soldiers are now work
ing against this sCourge of the tropics his
cohorts of microbes and his aerial artillery
of mosquitoes is story which all should
hear At the headquarters in Washington
In the great stone mansion which Ben But
Ter built for his home-there sits. with the
war charts before him. the indefatigable
cOmmander-in chief. Surgeon General Wal
ter Wyman. Having entered the service
thirty years ago as young 81. Louis ply
sician, he came into prominence through
laws which he promoted In the interest OF
our merchant marine seamen and for the
suppression of Crueltles imposed on the
rivermen and oystermen of a generation
ago. His staff consists of six assistant
surgeons general. selected from corps of
over a hundred commissioned and uni
formed medical officers, under whom work
a force of over $40 medical assistants.
Revolutionized Quarantine
At eight of the principal fruit ports OF
Central America, at various other yellow
fever hotbeds in Mexico and South Amer
lea, officers are stationed in our consulates
for the inspection of vessels bound for the
United States Moreover, soon as a ves-
sci sails into any of our ports from for
elgn yellow fever port public health boat
sails out from quarantine to meet it, Med
zeal officers board ii. the passengers and
crew being carefully examined before al
lowed to land. All persons suspected of
having exposed themselves to the infection
arr taken off and detained within the quar-
artine inclosure sufficiently long for the
disease to develop.
Until some five years ago yellow
fever ships were boarded by dis
injecting corps armed with portable sui
phur fumgators which resembled fire en-
giucs. Disinfecting solutions were sprayed
upon the infected parts of the ship and all
baggage was steamed upon metallic racks
wheeled upon a track into an immense
steam chamber. But although these devices
are still resorted TO in combating other for
eign infections aboard ship. mosquito study
so zealously carried on by scientists IN the
past few years has resulted in complete
revolution OF our quarantine laws applying
10 yellow fever. Distinction OF baggage is
no longer required unless 1t be suspected
that mosquitoes are harbored therein. In
stead OF the sulphur furnaces and sprays
for killing the yellow-feyer germ directly,
there now are applied in necessary cases
agencies for freeing the vessels entirely of
mosquitoes.
IS. then. the undoubted carrier OF the
germ. This was proven few years
back by Surgeon Walter Reed T. S A. He
confined in one house not screened from
mosquitoes volunteers clad I'm the most i'm
macuate night garments and covered by
the cleanest bed clothing which It was pos
sible TO obtain. In another house com
pletely screened against mosquitoes he shut
up volunteers who used the night clothes
and bed coverings taken from patients in a
yellow fever hospital. The men In the first
building contracted the disease while those
In the second escaped. whereby IL was
proven that the suspected mosquito and nor
the supposedly infected clothing was the