El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-09-18

4 l. ,
| ills. the scientists engaged in medical
| research spend much time studying the
! diseases obey cause. Their efforts to
learn how diseases are caused and to
| find efficient methods of prevention
and cure constitute one Of the brightest
( pages in human progress and repre-
4 sent a zeal in the cause that has sent
! many brave man to martyrs grave.
Danish Terror Of Tropics.
Notable as an instance is the yellow
fever crusade. Who that saw the
French fail at Panama because of yell
low fever, or that has witnessed the
American success there because of its
| absence, can fail to acknowledge the
| immense valuee that the proof of
the methods of propagating the
disease has been to humanity?
Of dee the "" worst t ills tn that ever afflicted
| humanity, and held there simply by
the observance of a few simple rules
of sanitation. A disease that won for
itself the appalling sObriquet, the ter
ror Of the tropics has been banished
from every community observing the
simple rules that were worked out in
Cuba
But the world could not be freed
from this scourge except through sac
rifice. In the laboratories of medical
science there were men who knew what
a boon A mastery of yellow fever would
prove to humanity, and for years and
y
Then came the suggestion that prob
ably the mosquito had something to DO
with it. and Reed, Carroll and LaZear,
acting under the orders of the war de-
partment, began their great work OF
fathoming the mysteries of yellow
fever. They began by a process of
elimination, in their efforts to ascertain
the cause They wanted to find out
whether it was contagious or not, so
they slept with yellow fever patients,
ate with their knives and forks and
spoons and out of their plates. They
slept in beds where yellow fever pa
tients had lain. put on their night
shirts and, in short, went to every pos
sibIe length to make absolutely sure
that yellow fever is not a contagious
or infectious disease One after an
other they proved every suggested
method of infection false, and finally
Concluded that there was no other way
possible to contract it but through the
bite of a mosquito
Sacrifice Lives to Save Others.
And who would let a mosquito,
| known to have bitten a yellow fever
! patient, bite him? The doctors con-
cluded that they could not ask anyone
else to do it unless they themselves
were willing to try it, so Carroll and
Lazear. fully realizing the horrors Of
the suffering the disease entails, took
| infected mosquitoes and permitted
them to bite. 1t takes courage to face
an enemys guns in the enthusiasm OF
playing, but here were men who had
none of the inspiring trappings of bat
( tie around them, willingly permitting
/ themselves to be infected with one of
} humanity's most horrible diseases, as
great heroes as history knows LaZear
/ died and Carroll recovered, but hun
| dreds of thousands have lived because
| of their sacrifices
What has happened in the case Of
yellow fever. so far as the saving OF
! life is concerned, has happened in the
| case Of dozens Of other diseases While
, the lay mind has not come to as full an
appreciation OF these other triumphs
! as of the successful effort to find the
cause and ascertain the remedy for
! yellow fever. it has been because its
attention has not been as firmly riv
! eted on the results of the other inves-
! LEGATIONS as il has been on the success
{ Of the yellow fever fight.
Vaccination For Typhoid.
Take vaccination for typhoid fever,
/ for instance. Wherever it has been
/ practiced il has reduced the number Of
/ cases to about One-fourth the former
/ proportions. and the number Of deaths
per 100 cases to about the same de-
! gree. Some have asserted that the vir
/ tual disappearance OF smallpox has
/ not been due to vaccination, but to
/ sanitation. AS observed in a previous
/ article, anyone who has Travelled in
/ Central America knows that it is not
! true. for there one sees the same sort
of sanitation that he might have seen
J in England when half of the popula-
/ ton was pOckmarked from smallpox
But in the case of vaccination for
| typhoid this cannot be urged, for it has
! happened that in the case Of troops in
the armies Of England, Germany and
/ the United States, the same ratios pre-
| vailed among men who ate at the same
messes, slept in the same tents and
{ marched shoulder to shoulder. IL
was found years ago that people sell
dom have typhoid but once. Therefore,
I -
/ must develop some substance in the
blood that makes it untenable for II
! thereafter.
| Experiments upon monkeys proved
| that when dead typhoid germs were
] injected into their veins they were
/ proof against typhoid. Out of that
| grew the present method of vaccinat
/ ing against typhoid. The germs are
/ grown, then killed, and injected into
/ the blood. The unprecedented freedom
/ from typhoid that now characterizcs
! the armies OF Europe and America
/ bears evidence of the success of this
! method of combating the disease. No
eminent surgeon had TO give up his
/ life in this case. but the wonderful re-
/ suits will be even more widespread
| than those growing out of the treat
I ment of yellow fever territory.
Spotted Fever and Plague.
I The recent death of surgeon McClin-
/ tic, of the United States public health
! service, while trying to put an end to
the spotted fever, or Rocky Mountain
! fever. in the far west. brings to mind
] the work that the hygienic laboratory
/ has been doing in effort to get ev-
| cry possible bit of information as to
! the cause of the disease and of the
methods Of combating it. There are
/ certain ticks whose bites transmit the
J germ from one person or animal to
| another Thousands of the ticks have
| been gathered together. and the ny
! gienic laboratory will soon take up 4
study of them. with view of deter
! mining what species are fever trans
/ mitters.
The bubonic plague is another dis
/ ease which is insect borne, but the few
1 hundreds of monkeys and guinea pigs
! whose lives have been sacrificed to
/ prove that it is so transmitted have
! died that tens of thousands OF human
! beings might live.
Success With Anti-TOxins.
So great has been the progress OF
/ medical science in its discovery of the
I germs which cause specific diseases,
{ and so remarkable the success it has
attained in finding anti-toXins. which,
I injected into the blood render it unin-
/ habitdble to those germs, and there
! fore makes the person inOculated i'm
! mune to the disease, that medical men
I confidently predict that if they can
/ have the full cooperation of the public
/ they will before the passing of the