Omaha daily bee., 1914-02-08
GuayaquiPs Fight with Fever and Plague
(copyrighted. 1914, by Frank c. csrpenter)

country, having an export and /
GNCN import trade OF more than 500 |
- CaOOO year. and this will be |
quadrupled II it can be made healthy. |
IL is important TO us that Il should be so /
for II is the first port south OF Panama. |
IT is not as far from Panama as is New |
York from Chicago and when the canal !
is completed 1t will be nearer Boston than |
from Boston to Liverpool The town lies |
about sixty miles from the ocean. II is |
on the wide and deep Guayas river. up |
which boats can so during the rainy sea- |
son for 200 or 800 miles. The town lies |
almost on the equator. II Is under the !
shadow of the snowy peaks of Chimborazo |
and Cotopaxi, but 1t is surrounded by |
jungle Just now IL Is afflicted with |
bubonic plague and yellow fever and these |
conditions will have to be wiped out be-
fore Ecuador can be allowed the free use
of the Panama canal
Must Clean Up Ports,
The Ecuadorans have come to realize |
the seriousness Of their situation. They !
know that their ports must be made
o'ean or they will block the country's
development The government has been
discussing the question for several years |
and foreign experts have been called in |
to make plans for the cleaning Of Guaya-
quill DR. Gorgas has been here and
given suggestions and scheme after
scheme has been proposed to remedy the
evil. Just now a contract with J. G.
White & Co. of New York and London
Is under way. That firm has had its
engineers on the ground and II is ready
20 enter into contract for series OF
public improvements that will cost Sl0,-
100000. This sum will be enough to do
the things Immediately necessary. It
will nave the streets, put in sewers, in
crease the water supply and inaugurate
systematic upbuilding and renovation
that will make the port safe for the
traveller and trader.
Not Healthy Place.
At present Guayaquil is so dangerous
that no one stops here who can help it.
The new cases of bubonic plague now
number ten or more every day and there
have been seventy new cases of yellow
fever reported within the last two weeks.
The officials have begun to vaccinate for
the plague and the moment the traveller
lands he is grabbed by the doctor and the
plague serum is injected into his arm.
He then gets a certificate proving that
he has been vaccinated, and he has to
show this before he is allowed to go into
the interior. There are two kinds of
vaccination given for the plague. The
one used here is the Haffkine process 1t
consists in injecting the dead cultures of
the plague Jbacilli The needle hurts as It
goes into your arm and you have at the
end a little pouch of juice containing
some millions of baclli under the skin
The arm is sore a short while. but the
vaccine does not make you sick. This is
supposed to render one immune from the
plague for several months. The other
form Of vaccination is by the yersin anti
toxin. 1t is given only to those who
have caught the plague and is supposed
to neutralize the poison In the system.
City Should he RebuiIt.
During my stay at Panama 1 had a
long chat with DR.. r. c. Perry the chief
health officer, who is in charge of the
sanitary conditions at the isthmus with
regard to the ports along the west coast.
He has visited every port from Callao to
Panama and has spent much time in
studying conditions at Guayaquil. He
tells me that the only way in which this
city can be cleaned is by practically re-
building IT. The town of today is swarm
ing with the rats, the fleas from which
carry the plague. The most of its houses
stand close to the ground and many of
them have wooden floors under which
rats can burrow. The walls have wooden
posts upon which are nailed laths of split
bamboo. The framework is covered with
stucco on the outside and plaster or
boards on the inside It makes a beautl-
full wall to look at. but the rats can
crawl inside the walls and walk up the
lathing.
Many of the poorer houses are built
right on the ground. Dr. Perry says that
they should be lacked up and placed on
posts so high that the rats could not
jump to the first floor He says that the
floors of the better class of houses should
be of cement and that all houses should
have cement foundations, as the rats
will burrow under any ordinary floor
Rats Are Everywhere.
AS 1. is now, according to DIR. Perry.
Guayaquil has rats everywhere, and all
of its rats have fleas. The bubonic
plague is transmitted by these fleas Bit
ing such rats as have the plague, and
then going from them to men, women
or children and biting them. A flea
that has bitten a sick rat will carry
the plague in its system for ten or
twelve days. and il it bites you during
that time the plague bacilh win go
into your blood. They will multiply
rapidly. and within five or six days
the chances are that you will die in
horrible pain.
asked DIR. Perry what kind of rats
carry the plague. He replied: Almost
any kind, but there are three which are
especially dangerous. One is the big
gray Norway rat another is the gray
tree rat, which has a white belly and
the third is a little black rat. The
black rat is most common In Guayaquil.
and the plague existing there comes
from it, The rats which catch the
plague often die; they will give the
plague to other rats. and it sometimes
becomes epidemic among them, although
they run from it. II a rat dies Of the
plague in a block or house. the unin-
fected rats Of that block seem to know
it, and they will desert the block and
go somewhere else.
Afraid of the Plague.
I am afraid OF the bubonic plague