Yellow fever and malaria : evidence given before the Royal Commission / by William Osler.

  • Osler, William, Sir, 1849-1919.
Date:
[1908?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Yellow fever and malaria : evidence given before the Royal Commission / by William Osler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Does one attach confer immunity as a rule ?—One attack confers immunity. In this camp a house was constructed with two compartments, divided from each other by a wire mosquito-proof screen. There were two sets of experiments made in connection with this little house. In the first place, into one side of this hut 15 infected mosquitoes were placed. Those were mosquitoes that had bitten a yellow fever patient within the first three days of the illness. Men were selected, partly from the Army and partly from civil life, who had expressed and signed their willingness to submit themselves to experiments. I may state that one or two of the medical men also volunteered. Into the compartment with the 15 mosquitoes a nou-immune went in the morning, in t he afternoon, and on the following morning, and submitted himself to the bite. For an hour, or somethiny of that hind ?—I do not know how long, but long enough to get a number of bites. Within five days he had the disease. At the same time, in the adjacent compartment, which was simply screened from these mosquitoes by a wire netting, for 21 consecutive nights two non-immunes slept. They did not get the disease. Were any precautions taken to keep the ordinary mosquitoes from them!—Yes, of course; the compartment was double-doored and very carefully screened so that there was no possibility of that. I may say that experiments of that nature were repeated on several occasions, demonstrating quite conclusively that, so long as these in- jected mosquitoes were kept from biting, though there was only a screen between them, the individuals did not get yellow fever. Then, experiments were made on a very extensive scale to determine whether the disease was conveyed by means of fomites, that is to say, whether, as was usually supposed, the disease was carried by infected clothing and by the excreta of the patients and by the vomit. For that purpose the clothing and material soiled by the vomit and by the blood, and by the stools of the patients, were placed in one of these rooms, and a group of non-iinmunes slept in contact with this cloth- ing. in some cases between the actual sheets of the beds in which these patients had died, for 21 consecutive nights. That experiment was repeated with a second set of non-immunes sleeping, as I say, with the bed linen and with the soiled materials of patients who had died of the disease. ISTot one of them took yellow' fever. What were the numbers of tiie non-immunes that slept in connection ivith the fomites ?—1 think two or three, two soldiers and one surgeon, for 21 consecutive nights; and a second party for the same period. Then these men were subsequently experimented upon by placing them in the section of the house with the infected mosquitoes, and in each instance they took the disease. Altogether 22 soldiers sub-