The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1910-04-26

Az a medical man SIR RUBEKr W.
BOYCE, the author 81 a reccntly pub
lished book. Health Progress and Ad-
ministration in the West Indies may
think that there in a strong flavor %
romance and fascination abOVt the his
tory II yellow fever in the West Indies
aud ON the spanish Main. but To others
the awful toll that Yellow Jack has
taken - armies and navies and mer-
chant fleets. not to mention settlers
since the day Of the conqui-tadcTes down
Ia comparatively recent times il hideous
and repellent.
Sir RUBERT himself tells us that in the
campaign against CartagenA in i74i the
British lost s.t5l men by fever out Of a
total 81 1900. A month after Count
ALBENARI.E landed his force to invest
Havana in I7s2 the infection struck
down $500 soldiers and $3.50 sailors
There IL not an inhabited island in the
West Indies where in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries soldiers and
sailors on British. French and Spanish
months after four British regiments
landed in Jamaica in ITsO nearly half
the complement was dead Of fever In
iSJ2 n battalion ~ the Seventh FIIsiliers
lost 80 out ~ no men at Fort Charlotte.
near the town Of Nassau. which came Co
b. known as the Abode Of Death" A
medical report early in the nineteenth
century stated that fever causes five
siHths Of the average mortality among
the troops in Jamaica During two
centuries epidemiCs 81 yellow fever were
almost continuous in the West Indies.
Merchant ships entered harbors at the
risk 81 losing their crews. and men-of-
war moved from port 10 port to escape
the infection. but in vain.
Old Spanish explorer and writer's
and the literary men 81 our times.
KINGSLEY. FRoUDR, SToDDARD. HEARN
and others. have invested the Antilles
with a glamour that nO one NAV resist
and their physical beauty casts q spell
over the most prOsaic mind. bat we can't
admit that yellow fever enhances the
poet TAFCADIO HEARS would draw the
line there The dreaded infection has
not been entirely banished indeed S.r
RI-BERT BOYCE. who IL dean 81 the LIVER
pool School 81 Tropical Medicine. WIS.,
tied Barbados only last wear Ia study
an outbreak on the island. but the West
Indies. big and small. are cleaning zap
and waging a war ~ determination
against stegomyia and anophelea. the
carriers ~ yellow fever and malaria. II
IL the subject II his book
II was the magnificent examples 81
the cleansing Of Havana and the regen-
Grating of the repablic IL Cuba and the
Of absolute health ~ec,Ir-
ity among the vast labor population
upOn the Isthmian Canal Zone that
put administrators in the British. French
and ut her West Indian islands upon heir
meitle Then came the comparatively
mild but diSguieting out breacs 81 1877,
ISOs and 1910. and the authorities re-
doubled their efforts. " must b. TN
der-tOod. however. that the doing away
with ci-terns and the piping 81 mOIn-
tain water Ia the towns had already re-
duced greatly the mortality from yell
low fever. hut the water mains were.
regarded only ~ n convenience. and the
medical men still attributed yellow
fever tO poisonous eGhalatiOns from the
swampS and marshes. II may now be
said that yellow fever h no longer en-
demic in any Of tho West Indies: it con-
tinue- 10 BE- - in the OrinOoo and Anna
ron valleys. and rigid guarantees may
always be- necessary.
Anti-larval regulations are now very
strict in tho British and French West
IndieA. and education in drainage. the
cleansing Of premises and tho removal