The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1922-03-24
Pacific Coast South
American Made Free
From Yellow Fever

LIMA Peru, Feb 21-(Associated
Press Mail)-The campaign conduct
ed jointly by the Peruvian govern
ment and the Rockefeller Foundation
which has resulted in Kidding the Pa
cific coast of South America from a
scourge of yellow fever was a test of
human endurance and also a battle
against ignorance and opposition.
"Our chief obstacle, said DR.. Hen
ry Hanson, director of the interna-
tional Health Board, was the ignor-
ance IN the part of the public. The
inhabitants in general did not wish
to accept the diagnosis of yellow
fever, saying that it vas pernicious
malaria with vomiting of blood. How
ever, there was a sufficient number
of medical men there who had seen
yellow fever before and was satisfied
as to the nature of the disease.
In n town the populace rose in
arms against the enforced closing of
moving picture theaters and churches
and mobbed the sanitary office in
IcuuluS W MIL ll6 ulI6CtOT III lndI
district and stop the campaign. The
men in the office escaped through a
hole in the roof of the building and
troops were called out to end the
riot .
The epidemic continued severe in
that place for DR.. Hanson withdrew
all his sanitary forces to protect a
section of the country where they
were more needed.
An idea of the magnitude of the
campaign may be gained from the
fact that Dr.. Hanson's assistants
made more than 100000 house visits
and inspected more than 100000
water containers.
After yellow fever was stamped out
in Guayaquil in 1909, the disease steal
thily spread to the northern provin-
ces of Peru and in early 1920, DR..
Henry R. Carter was sent to combat
it. He believed he had it stopped but,
instead, it had crept into the Depart
ment of ~Lambayeque.
Upon learning Of its temperance,
the Rockefeller Foundation asked the
Peruvian government if help was
needed and President Leguia accept
ed their offer. DR.. Hanson, who made
a name for himself in sanitary work
in Panama, has directed the cam
paign as joint project for the Foun-
dation and for the Peruvian govern
ment, each paying so percent of the
expenses. The outside world will little
realize the tremendous piece of work
quietly carried on by this American
doctor, who himself fell sick with the
disease he was fighting.
In January, 1921, the epidemic vas
officially recognized and the cam
paign begun. The disease became so
firmly established that DR.. Hanson and
his corps of assistants could not
check it until it had spread to 81 of
the principal towns of the Depart
ment of Lambayeque and Libertad.
THE inhabitants weye dying by the
hundreds" said DR.. Hanson, "the
death rate being between 25 and 60
percent but it was a physical impos-
sibility for us to attend to individual
cases because of lack of personnel.
Our job was to prevent the spread
of the epidemic.
1--WE organized our campaign on a
military basis, continued DR.. Han
son. "The job was so big that there
was no other way to handle it.
had about 300 employees, in addition
to a detachment from the Peruvian
army. My American assistants have
been Major L. H. Dunn and Messrs,
M. M. Seely, l. W. Pickett and John
p. Corrigan. Colonel Vergne of the
French Army Mission to Peru was a
very valuable adviser and helper in
the campaign"