The Washington times., 1937-01-20

concerns him.
African mos.
SAAl quitOeS, it
Edwin c. Hill EN- S, hav e
been found in Brazil No steam
ship brought them because they
die on steamships during long
voyages. Brazil is long way from
Africa by sea. 1t is not far by air.
Therefore. the mosquitoes must
have come by air. They didn't fly.
So the final step in deducing how
they got there is to look to the air
plane and perhaps, there find the
solution.
It happens that Europe is much
nearer Africa than Brazil, and
many more airplanes ply between
the Dark Continent and Europe
than between Africa and Brazil.
Where you find an African mos
quito you need not be surprised to
find old yellow Jack himself.
Zone vein in the Joint of a
mosquitoes leg" says DR.. Heiser,
"carrieS enough deadly poison to
kill you deader than doornail."
The men in white" had yellow
fever, the bubonic plague and
other such Scourages of Africa and
India definitely under control
about the time the World War
came along.
NEW DANGERS
Doctors and scientists tracked
down microbes and causes. Rigid
public health standards and whole
sale sanitary improvements did
the rest. But now the airplanes
have come along as a probable
carrier and, as DR.. HeiSer says:
This constitutes a very real
and new danger to the world
today"
There is nothing exceedingly
pessimistic about DR.. Heiser, but
he does see a large job for the
medical men in sidetracking the
danger, and he's off to do his bit.
Forty years of a hand-to-hand
struggle with leprosy, yellow fever,
cholera and beri-beri bred in him
a wholesome respect rather than
a contempt for pestilential dis
eases.
At a dinner of doctors in New
Year some time ago, DR.. Abraham
Jacoby complimented DR.. Heiser
on his bravery in fighting the
scourges of the tropics. To which
DR.. HeiSer replied.
The diseases of the tropics,
which sound so terrifying here,
we, know how to prevent. We
run practically no danger of con-
tracing them. But there is no
prOphylaxiS against pneumonia
or rheumatism. Do not, there
fore, condOle with me. I assure
you I consider you, who live
among dangers that you know
how to control, the real heroes"
Sailing from New York in the
rain, the influenza and the pneu-
monia this month, DR.. Heiser had
occasion to repeat those words.
I'VE have yellow fever under
CONTROL" he said, "or at least
know how to put it under. con-
troll and prevent its spread. I
wish we could say the same for
the diseases common to the
United States - tuberculosis,
pneumonia and rheumatism.
About these we know little or
nothing and they are more dan
gerOus to man at the present
time than the old ScOurges."
With all of his comingS and 60
1ngs, DR.. Heiser ha7 found time to
do a best seller. 1t is his biography,
AN American Doctors Odyssey,
published in 1886 and it is so good
that it held me just as strongly
as that certain novel which has to
do with the adventures of one Scar
lett O'Hara during the Civil War
and the Reconstruction in Georgia.
INSPIRING
At 16, Victor HeiSer was an or
phan. On the afternoon of May
81, 1889, his father sent him from
their house in Johnstown, Pa, to
remove two horses from the barn.
The boy got outdoors Just in
time to see a huge black wall
rushing towards him. It was a
wall of water "in which seethed
houses, freight cars, trees and
animals" flood descending
upon JohnStown. The next day
Victor Heiser was rescued from a
floating roof. His parents died
in the disaster.
The orphan tried his hand at
plumbing and carpentry befnr-
getting around to medicine and
the superb career he made for
himself in it.
You read his story and you
think not only of Heiser, but of
Pasteur, Reed, Noguchi, Lister
and a host of others like them.
Then you believe that while medi-
cine continues to produce such
men, the conquest of flu and
pneumonia cannot be so very far
away.
Copyright 1897 by King Features
EV0diCste Iuc