The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-05-28
A woNDpnruL ACHrEyEMENr.

cage ana Its application produced more
wonderful and beneiceht results than
has been done in connection with yell
low fever. The memory doesn't have
to go back many years to reach the
time when 1t was the most direful
scourge of tropical and temperate
America. Not only was 1t at home.
and nearly always in evidence in Cen
trail America and in the West Indies,
but In the Southern States of the
Union, II was a constant menace. Even
as far north as New York and Penn
| sylvania II has more than once OBJ
tained foothold and carried death be-
| fore it.
But Il was in the Southern tier of
| States that 1t revelled and hourished
with each recurring warm season.
Every large city. even as far north as
| Memphis, has felt and suffered from
the scourge. 1t was once thought that
there were no methods of preventing
of guarding against 1t, and that moth
ing was to be done but to wait for it's
! appearance and then battle against II
with whatever of medical skill could
be brought to bear. And that, it must
be admitted, was discouraglngly small.
That the best physicians were unable
to control or cure 1t. needs no argu-
ment or demonstration except the ap-
palling death list many times published
in the reports. That guarding and
segregation was some help is true.
That many cases were cured, or got
well, is also true, but success was la
mentally seldom. In truth yellow
fever had almost come to be regarded
as the kismet of Southern United
States. and about all that was hoped
for when it came was that an early
frost would end 1t. Its appearance in
any Southern city was the occasion
for a rushing hegira of affrighted or
cautious citizens, who fed fron 1t as
they would have fed from an army of
Goths and Vandals. They were occa-
sions when discretion was the better
part of valor, and dell take the hind
most" was what many thought, IL they
did not express it.
An evidence of the wonderful strides
by The Boston Globe:
Col. Gorgas. who directs the work of
sanitation in the Panama Canal, is
sence OF seventeen months He re-
ports that yellow fever has been en-
tirely stamped out on the isthmus.
There are now about $4,000 men en-
ployed on the canal construction, and
the last case of yellow fever in Colon
was a year ago, and in the city of
General health conditions are thorough
ly satisfactory.
Whatever may be said Of the work
on on the canal It is only fair to o assume sumo
gas describes exists in one department
1t is Indicative of the general spirit
animating the Governments efforts in
this great enterprise. And If the
American Government can succeed in
achieving results in the all-important
work of sanitation which were unpre-
cedented. there Is reason to believe that
II may be able to do the unprecedented
thing there in other lines of work.
AS is or should be well-known, what
has now come to be known as the ca
nal zone has been the breeding ground
and nursing place of the yellow plague.
Conditions there were so favorable to
1t that nothing was to be expected
but that it would prevail there each
year, and, as a matter of fact 1t was
always there in more or less virulent
form. If. as Colonel Gorgas says, the
disease has actually been stamped
out in that region, 1t is a remarkable
object lesson in medical skill and ap-
piication.
What was true Of Panama was true
in almost equal degree of Cuba. There.
too, it fiourished and revealed in its
almost unlimited power and death was
its boon companion, And Cuba was a
The short distance between it and us.
and the constant stream of commerce
always flowing beteween Havana and
our Southern ports was really an invi-
tation to Yellow Jack to pay us a visit,
and he rarely failed to respond. From
the Gulf and Atlantic ports 1t was such
an easy matter to convey it to all
cities in communication with them that
an epidemic of the disease was to be
| expected at any time. II a city es
capped an annual visitation, 1t was
looked on as a matter to be won
dered at.
But in Havana and other portions of
| Cuba, practically the same results have
been obtained that are reported from
Panama. If yellow fever has not been
| entirely stamped out, 1t has been so
nearly so that little dread is entertain
ed for the future, provided due care is
taken. The same may be said of our
own section. The discovery that yell
| low fever is only carried and dissem-
mated by one species of mosquito and
that with due care and vigilance those
insects can be destroyed. is virtual
assurance that we need no longer
stand in dread of the disease. 1t may
visit us again. but the epidemics that
we have so frequently had are things
of the past, and We may hope never to
return. So much has modern science
| done for humanity.
JOHN ID. GORDON.
The unwilling in Atlanta on last
| Saturday of a monument to Gen. John
B. Gordon was an act which does the
/ highest credit to that city, to Georgia,