The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-07-14
THE TROPICAL WORLDLY Fraak c. Carpenter

the world. Taking care of ones health here Is not unlike taking care of an or chard Apples and peaches are injured more by the insect pests which attack the trees than by lack of cultivation or inferior soil. If you can keep off the in- sects the luscious fruit natures in boun- tiful quantities. It is the same with man in the tropics. If you can keep the para sites out of him he seems to thrive quite as well as in the temperate zone
 4 Cost of 1 Cent Per Day
 But. pr. Gorgas, are not the methods of sanitation used on the canal so costly that no nation could afford to adopt them?"
 y"No. They are cheap. The average cost of keeping the population of the isthmus in it's present sanitary condition Is just about 1 cent per day per capita, and that sum is we'll within the means of any tropical country. A great deal of misstatement has been made concerning that matter It has been said that we were spending something Ike s2J00.oo0 per year on sanitation, and certain imag- inatve newspaper men nave figured out that at the same ratio 1t would cost a vast sum to keep the United States healthy. Those figures did not come from this bureau. Our actual cost of sanita- ton has not amounted to more than s305.000 per year, and this Is for 8 popn- lation of 15o0o0. It would amount to considerably less than cent per day per man. If you take the ratio of the cost, as compared with that of Chicago or oth- CTS of the United States cities you will find that we are spending comparatively little, Indeed, I have figured that we are spending here only 10 per cent more per capita than is spent the United States over"
 The conversation here turned to the two kinds of mosquitoes. which more than the lions and tigers of the jungle have driven the white men from the tropics, and I asked Colonel Gorgas to tell me some thing about these terrible insects. In the conversation which followed, he said:
 There are altogether about 400 diff ferent kinds of mosquitoes. each of which has it's own habitant and peculiari- ties. Take the Jersey mosquito. That breeds in salt water and will sometimes fly thirty miles during the night. It Is far more ferocious than the malarial or yellow fever mosquito, and it's bite is more painful The malarial mosquito is known as the anophele. It bites dur ing the daytime, but it's chief feeding time is at night. It Is an out-of-door mosquito and usually lives In the coun- try. It breeds in fresn water and seeks fresh streams with lung grass at the sides or quiet pools. The stegomyia or yellow fever mosquito Is more fond of the towns and the cities. It breeds in cisterns. rain barrels. old cans filled with water and stangnant pools. It Is not near ly so large as the Jersey mosquito. and is grayish white with zebra stripes about his body and legs.
 "Both the stegomyia and tho anophele rnve about the same habits as to repro ducing their young. They feed upon vegetable matter, but the females when they are about to breed must have blood and for that reason they attack man. They also have the properties which make them the fit habitat for the vel low fever and malarial parasites, and if they feed upon a mao who has malaria or the yellow fever they take these para sites into their system.
 The parasites are so small you cannot see them with q microscope, but we know that they exist and that they multiply so rapidly that they finally come into the saliva of the mosquito. When the mosquito. having been infected with these parasites, bites man second time she injects some of this saliva contain ing the parasites, and this gives man the yellow fever or malaria
 'It is, however" the anophele only that transmits malaria, and the stegomyia only that gives yellow fever. There Is nc such thing as men having either of these diseases if he Is not bitten by these mosquitoes"
 Yellow Fever Not Contagious
 But how do you know that, Colone Gorgas?" I asked.
 "1t has been proved by many expert rnents. The fact that 4he malafial mos quito would transmit malaria was dis covered by an English army surgeon Ronald Ross, and, as you may remember experiments were made in the Campaigns just outside Rome, which proved there was no danger of disease in that fever