Arizona republican., 1906-03-23

eles. which he is taught to know by sight. The anopheles rests perpen- dicularly on the net and the stegomyia has a yellow jacket.
 The commander oe the brigade of mosquito fighters. Le Prince. now chief sanitary inspector of the isthmus is al civil engineer who, soon after his grad uatiOn from Columbia college. became associated with Colonel Gorgas, and has been his right-hand man ever since. Le Prince is man with hobby. He does not care for pay or promotion; he cares onIy for mosqui- toes and saving human lives. His in spectors know the haunts of the little enemy. which will not breed where there are fish that will eat the larvae or where there is scum which prevents the larvae rising to the surface to breathe. The tiny pool at the foot of Ia palm tree. or where an animal has made a footprint, rather than Colon. is the real pesthole of the isthmus. Happily. the anopheles and the stego- myia are not travellers like the culex. or ordinary black mosquito. If they were, there would be no limit to the ravages Of malaria and yellow fever. New Orleans, which has quarantined men so carefully. never quarantined bananas which have carried infected stegomyia into the city from Costa Rica.
 For a thousand feet around every building or collection of houses in the canal zone vegetation has been cleared away and burned and drains have been cut. The pools have been covered with petroleum. which sufocates the larvae when they come to the surface, and frequent examination instantly reveals when the medicine" is losing its efficacy.
 The proof of mosquitoes is their bite, and while I was tattooed when | was on the isthmus before. on this visit was not bitten a half dozen times. The old French hospital building on the hill at AncOn-the mosquito tle- ory was not known in De Lesseps' time surrounded as it was by shrubbery and vegetation. was one of the worst breeding places on the isthmus. Hign ground by TO means segregates yOu from the scourge. But at Ancon, as at Culebra, it makes mosquito extermina- ton easy because the drainage of all the little pools is easy.
 If you doubt the mosquito theory, the doctors will catch an anopheIes. and under the microscope you may see in him the same little devil that ap- pears in your own blood when you have the malaria. Eat plenty of qui- nine and the devils will gradually dis appear from the blood. but perhaps not from the spleen and liver. where they take refuge till the storm passes. say eat quinine. for eat is literally the word on the isthmus. Severe cases take sixty and seventy grains a day. Colonel Gorgas never says How do you dO?" without adding. Are you taking quinine regularity" He is a cure of all diseases. who holds pub lie confessional and advises quinine tablets in place of cocktails as appe- tigers. In the hospitals you see some of the results of not taking quinine. You may get malarial fever in the first month or not for a year. and when it comes it may be a light attack or it may mean a week or more in bed.
 The white man is cared for as well as he is at home. the black man better than he has ever dreamed of. More skillful doctors and surgeons are in attendance than in the average provin- cial hospital. over seventy trained women nurses are on the isthmus. where they are paid little more than in the states
 We heard much of the efficiency of the Japanese medical corps, but if I am any judge. and I have seen some thing of such affairs, our own people have done even better here. It is healthier today to work on the zone than it was to work on the New York Subway or the Chicago drainage canal In no undertaking of the kind in our country has there been such efficient sanitation. No gang laborers on any railroad have ever had such quarters or been so well looked after as the West Indian negro.
 And yet it must be borne in mind that this is the healthy season, the dry season. when yellow fever always abates in Central America. The rainy season will be due again in April; then we shall have the final test. If yellow fever can be stamped out altogether, or confined to few cases, if the rav- ages of malaria can be kept down 10 the present standard Colonel Gorgas and his aids will have won a triumph that will survive all the malice of poli- tics.-Frederick Palmer in Golfers.