A NEW MENACE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 182, 31 January 1912, Page 6

A NEW MENACE.

DANGER OF YELLOW FEVER. WHEN PANAMA CANAL IS OPENED. Sydney, January 19. When the Panama Canal is opened and the Pacific becomes the great commercial'highway, with Auckland as one of the principal ports of call, a dangerously close connection will be established between New Zealand and one of the great fever belts of the world, and a grave responsibility will be thrown upon I the health authorities to prevent the inI troduction of yellow fever, the ravages I of which have been amongst the greatest difficulties that have confronted those engaged in the completion of the Oanal. A Sydney paper, referring to this men : ace, points out that its reality becomes apparent when it, is remembered how, from various ports of the Spanish Main, themselves usually * infected by , vessels from harbors where the disease was rife, yellow fever was carried to Spain and to Portugal. There its incidence showed all the virulence of a new disease in new surroundings. From 1800 onwards Barcelona, Seville, Cadiz, all suffered severely. Lisbon, in 1857, recorded over €OOO deaths from the disease. Ports nearer the regions where the fever is endemic have suffered i very severely at timesNew Orleans, for example. Rio de Janeiro has had some notoriously severe epidemics, and in 1898 94 per cent, of those attacked by the disease died. It is, however, the paper continues, a comfort to think that infection is less likely to be carried by the modern steamer than by the vessel of half a century ago; but the danger is a real one, nevertheless.. Yellow fever is prac- 1 tically unknown in Australasia, and it is to be hoped it may always remain so. The cause of the disease is not yet definitely known, though, like malaria, it is doubtless spread by the bite of the mosquito. Destruction of the mosquito has,' therefore, always been one of the principal means of combating the disease. The treatment of .yellow fever is unsatisfactory, and will doubtless remain so until the cause of the is more thoroughly elucidated. In addition to the drugs formerly employed, recourse is being had to the modern methods of vaccine and serum therapy. It claimed that Sanarelli's serum, prepared after the manner of the now well-known antitoxin for diphtheria, has been the means ' of saving many lives, and of checking the spread of the disease. At the present time the education of the public in reference to the nature of the disease furnishes the means of preventing and combating it; and should the deadly scourge make its appearance in Australia or New Zealand it would be well for the health authorities to be prepared.