Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 142, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1919 — To Rid Ecuador of Yellow Fever [ARTICLE]

To Rid Ecuador of Yellow Fever

Gen. W. C. Gorgas to Promote Improvement of General Sanitation. DIFFICULTIES TO OVERCOME Rockefeller Foundation Is Backing the Work— Ecuadorian Government—ls Much Interested in Undertaking. Christobal, Canal Zone. —Gen. William C. Gorgas and his staff passed through Panama recently on their way to Guayaquil, Ecuador, on his mission for the Rockefeller foundation of stimulating the elimination of yellow fever from that port. and of promoting the* improvement of geueral sanitation there. The Ecuadorian government has become very much Interested in the matter, in view of the hopes of commercial and industrial activity after the war. General Gorgas received the correspondent of the New York World very cordially, and from him and Colonel Wrightson much interesting information about the work was obtained. ■ The world-wide campaign now being carried on by the Rockefeller foundation against such universal plagues as yellow fever, hookworm, malaria, bubonic plague and tuberculosis has already begun to revolutionize conditions in some of the countries in which the work is being carried on. Vitality Is Increased! For example, the reduction of the Incidence of the hookworm in Porto Rico and Panama has resulted in an increase of the vitality of the population and stimulated industrial activity to a degree that has been clearly reflected in increased business activity. The foundation has employed the most eminent -experts.Jn the worldjfor ita work. General Gorgas is perhaps

the most prominent of them all, having eradicated yellow fever from Cuba, made sanitation for Panama a model for the world, and carried the medical and surgical work of the United States army to a degree of efficiency never known in any army of the world before, during, the war. The west coast of South America has been severely handicapped in its shipping and commercial business by the existence of centers of yellow fever infection in a number of places, especially at Buenaventura, the Pacific port of Colombia, and Guayaquil, the commercial metropolis and port of Ecuador. A rigid quarantine has had to be maintained at Panama against all these ports of western South America, resulting In much delay to passengers who have to be held in quarantine at Panama until known to "he free” from lnfection; while cargoes have frequently had to be fumigated against mosquitoes and rats, with much loss of time and money and occasional damage to the cargo. Two Difficulties Overcome. Two difficulties have been in way of eradicating these diseases from these ports. One lias been the financial expenses, which would be a heavy charge upon the governments of the countries involved, and the relative failure of the people at large to appreciate the necessity of Improved sanitation. The Rockefeller foundation is helping to solve the first of these difficulties, and is indirectly also promoting the spread of information among the people so as to reduce the indifference on the subject. The healthfulness of the Isthmus of Panama has been a good advertisement for sanitation to South American travelers. One of the main difficulties in arousing public sentiment to demand the thoroughgoing elimination of endemic diseases has been the fact that the population of the ports involved nave Deeoine more or loss tmiiiuntr through the operation of the natural

method of immunization produced by the disease. But the constant arrival at these ports of nonimmune persons from the interior or from other countries keeps the infection alive as long as the mosquitoes which convey the disease are in these ports. There Is nearly always a sufficient number of cases of yellow fever in existence to infect these mosquitoes, and when new arri- « vals are bitten they are likely to develop the fever, and so to keep the epidemic going from one new arrival to another. The only safe way to get rid of the fever, therefore, is to get rid of the mosquitoes.