The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1915-10-16
Surgeon General of United
States Army Speaks i'm
BrattIebOrO
TELLS HOW PEST
HAS BEEN CURBED
Many Interesting Facts Concerning
Manner in Which Malaria and Vel
low Fever Are Transmitted - Good
Sized Audience Present.

An audience that comfortably filed |
the main floor of the Auditorium last
evening and overfiowed into the |
balcony learned a lot about the mosaui- |
to and the habit Of this pest of carry |
ing disease from person to person, and
of the great work that has been done
toward eliminating the danger The
authority for the information was DR.
William c. Gorgas, surgeon general of
the United States army. the man who
made the canal zone habitabIe
DR.. Gorgas spoke in Burlington
Thursday evening before the Vermont
State Medical society and came to
BrattlebOro as a guest of DIR. Henry D.
HoltOn of the state board of health,
with whom he has been intimately asso-
ciated for years in the work of the
American Public Health association.
As the mosquito is the means bv
which malaria and yellow fever, the
two dread diseases of warm climates,
is transmitted, it was natural that Dr.
| Gorgas should devote much of his time
to the discussion of that insect. It was
| interesting to learn that the negro
sought the job of being exposed to the
| bites of the mosquito with its danger
of resultant yellow fever because it
was easier for him 10 sleep all night
and have nothing to do all day than
| it was to work for the same pay at
manual labor.
| He told in some detail of the dis
eoveries of the fact that mosquitoes
were the carriers of malaria and of
yellow fever and Of the months con
sumed in tests which involved volun-
teers from the human race who subject
ed themselves to the bites of insects.
The mosquito, which carries the
malaria, lays her eggs on the water and
they usually require about three days
TO become larvae. The larvae stage
lasts eight or nine days, after which
the adult mosquito energies. The
malaria parasite is taken into the stom-
ach of this mosquito along with the
blood which it takes when it bites q
man suffering from malaria and under
goes development within the body Of
the mosquito for 10 or II days. After
this stage is passed any human being
who is bitten by the mosquito carrying
the malaria parasite becomes stricken
with the disease.
The history Of the female mosquito
which carries yellow fever from man to
man, is much the sanib as that of the
malaria carrying insect. The yellow
fever parasite, however, circulates in
the blood of the one suffering from the
disease for the first three days only
, SO that the mosquito must bite Tho
stricken person within that period Il
acquire the parasite. So far as com
municating the disease is concerned tbs
mosquito may puncture all the human
= flesh it can reach for Is days and tn,
disease is not communicable. For som,
, unknown reason the mosquito must car
rv the parasite for II days before be
ing able to infect another human be
ing.
DIR. Gorgas told of the days when
Havana, Cuba, was an endemic focu
because of the yellow fever which ha.
existed there for hundreds of years an,
= had infected the United States for Owe
a century and a half. The death rat
Eof Havana from yellow fever when Dl
G0rgas began his work there IN Febru
airy of 1901 was from 1000 to 800
deaths yearly. BY November of tina
same year there was not a single cas-
of yellow fever in the city and it ha
been free from il ever since. Dr. Go!
gas went from Havana to Panama j
May, 1904, and the last case of yellOl
IL fever occurred in Panama city !
a. November, 1905, and the whole republi
J of Panama has been practically FIRE
t, from this dread disease since that date
It is the current belief that mosqu