Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1915-06-26
INSECTS ARE
MANS ENEMY
Woods Hutchinson Gives Adj
dress Before National
Medical Association.

San Francisco, June 26.-Dr. Woods
Hutchinson of New York, president of
the American Academy of Medicine,
in his address before the Academy
here today said the world would see
still further remarkable progress in
the development of the tropics, and
that in all colonization schemes the
physician should prepare the way.
The Physician as a Pioneer" was
his subject, in line with the general
topic to which all the sessions OF
this years academy meeting are de-
voted, namely: "Medicine in It's Re.
lationships to Commerce and Trans.
portation.'
Disease tho Enemy.
DR.. Hutchinson said, in part:
THE real enemy of the pioneer,
the chief obstacle to the spread OF
civilization is not Indians, or wolves,
or rattlesnakes, or ven famine or
flood-or winter cold or tropic heat,
but insects. Most schemes of coloni-
cation that failed-failed, not from
famine. or the attack Of enemies, but
through disease. And more than half
of them from one disease-malaria.
This is not merely the Age OF Man,
but the Age of Insects, geologically
considered, and the battle is to the
death between them for the possess
sion of the earth.
IN the tropics, the insects get the
whip hand of man and keep him stu
pid, short-liyed, uncivilized. 1t was
the Plague Of Flies, the bloody tyr
rany of insects that drove man out
of the warm, comfortable, fertile trop-
les into the chilly, rain-swept, half
the year frozen north. Now, grown
to full human stature, he is coming
back to invade and r%econquer the
tropics aud put to flight the ancient
foes Of the race.
in an earlier day, the first requi-
site Of a new colony, or a pioneering
expedition, was a captain, a bold and
skillful fighting man, with muskets
for every grown man in the party,
and plenty Of powder and ball. But
now, the first and most fundamental
requirements OF a new colony are a
doctor-engineer with microscope and
test tubes, spades and trenching ma
chimes, and plenty Of quinine, kero-
sene and mosquito netting.
Survey Necessary.
I'm the near future, no colony or
land company will be permitted to
take settlers into their new homes,
until a thorough and complete sur
vey shall have been made OF the re-
gion, sanitary, medical, entomology
cal, expert agricultural. And at least
a sufficient area to accommodate in
safety the first group of settlers shall
have been drained and kerosened AID
supplied with good water, so as to
be protected against malaria, typhoid,
hook-worm and water and fy.borne
diarrhoea and %dysentery.
I'm the light of our present knowl.
edge, it should be regarded as little
short Of m~anslaughter to permit men
women and little children who are
unfamiliar with the country, unsea'
soned to the climate, to enter and
face the dangers of settlement in a
new country or district without this
preliminary survey and protection,
whether in their own land or across
the seas. 1t would cost a few thous-
ands or hundreds of thousands of dol
lars, but not very much more than
the advertising literature, and would
save ten times it's cost in human life
and suffering and failure, besides be-.