New Britain Herald Newspaper, September 30, 1926, Page 19

The body of the victim of a smallpox epidemic in India loaded on the boat which will carry it out into deep water where it will be flung overboard. 0 longer is it possible for pesti- N lence, originating in the Far East, to get a running start along of world commerce, to appear mysteriously on far distant shores and to take a h toll of human life in y different countries. As soon outbreak of discase occurs, be it alomg the banks of the Ganges or the Yangtze-kiang, in a South African kraal or a Borneo rubber planta- tion, a warning is promptly flashed from Geneva by radio to every government health authority in the world This is part of the work now being done by the Epidemiological Intelligence Service of the League of Nations. Be- hind it is a tale that needs no embellish- ment to make it appeal to the imagina- the lin man as an tion. The field headquarters of the E. L. S. are at Singapore, the strategic center of the crowded Far East, to which almost every widespread epidemic in modern history has been traced. Thanks to the co-operation of the public health admin- ations of British North Borneo, Cey- n, China, Dutch East Indies, the Philip- pine Islands and the Straits Settlements, the bureau is informed instantly of the first appearance of cholera, plague, rat plague, smallpox, yellow fever, ete., in any port in Asia east of Suez, or in Australasia. Regular reports are also received from Camaran, El Tor, Jeddah and Mecca during the annual pilgrim- and from Egypt and the East Coast of Africa as far south as Capetown. When it is discovered that an epidemic has started somewhere, Singapore imme- diately cables the facts to Saigon. From courtesy of the govern- Indo-China, the tele- gram is broadcast by radio. The mes- picked up by the Far Eastern ons and also by the French wireless station of Ste. Assise, near Bor- deaux, which relays it to the Eiffel Tewer. Paris telephones the tidings to Geneva, where it is incorporated by the Central Epidemiological with received from other sources by ages Saigon, by the ment of French admin Service news cable and wireless, From Geneva, a complete health bul- letin is broadcast to the world, to find its way through the maze of jazz, opera, and bedtime stories to th administration Bad to travel fast by doing still worse weather reports all national he; certainly mac and by new the news of United States what a to the an outbreak of cholera’ in, say, Java? Cholera doesn’t bother ou say. It is something that rgy- half-civilized peoples concern As a matter of fact, it is only by the constant vigilance of the United States Public Health that it is kept from becoming established in this coun- try. E erop up ir Service ar two or three the United States. Because of the rapid and many means of com- cases munication-—railrods, automobiles and even airplanes—if it once got a firm foothold over here it would devastate the population in a very short time. Cholera, plague, mallpox and yellow fever, like the grim Four Horsemen, are constantly at our gates, ready to gallop over the land at the first indication that our guard has been dropped. ould appear in This Dutch possession, the most Supposing Java, “holer: Native custom prescribes this method of burial for all who die of this disease and of course it results in the pollution of the waters of many lakes and rivers Below, a section of the switchboard in a new German broad- casting station— part of the world- wide radio system that is preventing plague and pesti- lence by giving time- ly warning when they threaten crowded spot on earth, is in constant touch, directly or indirectly, with every big port in the world. amers that carry its exports to Europe all stop at Singapore. Singapore is “the cross- roads of the East.” Although a few years ago it was but a tiger infested Jungle isle, 10,000 ocean going steamers, representing fifty and 20,000 coastwise vessels now call there annually. Perhaps a Lascar stoker on a steamer from Java contrac He gets a few hours shore leave at Singapore, The lines, cholera. mingles with the crowds and communi- cates the disease to one of the crew of a ship hailing from the United States. 3ut the cholera might take a more roundabout way to get across the At- The Lascar might pass on the disease to a sailor whose ship was bound for Basra, on the Gulf of Persia, for a cargo of dates. Cholera has frequently lantic. e e = T LT Woman officer of the United States Public Health Service begin- ning a health examina- tion of two newly ar- rived immigrants at Ellis Island, New York scourged Traq, so this ail- ing Lascar lands on fertile soil for the further propa- gation of the germs of the disease. Then the cholera creeps up to Bagdad, and pilgrims carry it to Mecca to infect those of the Faithful who had tramped over caravan routes from to Constantinople. de: Then an American ship leaves Alex- andria with a cargo of Kgyptian cotton and a deckhand who has rubbed shoul lately And so cholera ders with a good Mohammedan returned from is brought to New York, Boston or New Orleans. But our quarantine authorities, fortu- Mecc advised of the Java epidemie*hy their own service, but the League of Nations has kept them posted of the cropping up of the discase nately, have been not only along all the world’s highways, byways and waterways that somehow meet at Singapore, and so are ready to repel the tened invasion. era is a world disease and a world problem. It is considered probable by historical students to have existed as an endemic the delta of the for centuries. From this en- demic home it has become epidemic in neighboring districts. In the nineteenth disease in Ganges Copyrizht, 1926, Dead body ly- ing in the street of an In- dian village during an outbreak of cholera so furious that there were not enough well people to care for the dead and dying century it first assumed appalling pro portions and spread from India, over Asia, Africa, Europe and America. The prevention of an outbreak in a com munity primarily the prompt detection of the first cases. There have been six widespread « demics of cholera since 1817. The his- tory of each is singularly similar. From its endemic home in India by means of > pilgrims and the caravan routes the carried to Afghanistan, Turkestan, Persia and Arabia. FEgypt was usually infected from Arabia. From Egypt, especially after the employment of steamships for sea travel, the infection was carried rapidly to Mediterranean ports of Turkey, Italy, Spain and France. Pilgrims took the infection from Mecea to Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor and Russian territory about the Black Sea. Russia also received infection di- rect from Central Asia over the great caravan routes from Persia, Afghanistan and Samarcand to the lower Volga and Baku. Cholera in Germany and Austria has been traced to Russian and Polish sources. depends upon 1se wa by Johnson Features, Ine Parts of the World the News of an Epidemic’s Outbreak Enables Medical Science to Prevent Its Taking a Heavy Toll of Human Life in Other Countries The danger to the United States at present, as in the past, lies largely in the importation of the infective agent by immigrants from the great Eurnpoanz seaports. t The possibility of the transfer of : cholera from the Ganges to the outside : world has been reduced to a minimum ; by the E. I. S. All the lines of world ¢ communication that radiate from India . are now watched by health detectives of the League of Nations. Thanks to . these agents, and the telegraph, tele- phone and radio, the whole Far East, in ig fact the whole world, knows instantly § when cholera rears it head. In Meso- potamia, even the services of the British Royal Flying Corps have been enlisted to carry swiftly to the nearest wireless station news of the occurrence of this and other highly communicable diseases in out of the way native settlements. Bubonic plague is another Far East- ern specter that ever haunts the dreams of our health authorities. Fortunately, other occurs more frequently by water than by land. Practically all of the great ports of British India, with the exception of Cal- cutta, are always infected with plague. Rangoon, Madras, Colombo, Bombay and Karachi have reported comparatively re- cently the presence of the disease, and from the latter point it has extended up to the Persian Gulf, Singapore, Sura- baya, Mauritius, Zanzibar, Queenstown in South Africa, and Dakar in Senegal. Plague is to be found at almost any time in Morocco, Algeria, Tripoli, Greece, Italy, Egypt, and especially at Port Said, another of the great gateways of the world. A third great meeting place of ocean going ehips is the Hawaiian Islands. Plague existed here no longer ago than August, 1924, Taking the Hawaiian Islands as a central point, plague was then found in San Francisco, Tokyo and Shanghai. It is thus seen how easily our entire Pacific coast is threatened directly by plague from the Orient, with the Ha- waiian Islands as the point at which the lines of travel con- verge and from which the disease spreads out to our western ports. The Pacific coast is also menaced by the existence of the disease in Vene- zuela, Uruguay and Peru, on the west- ern coast of South America, a little over 4,000 miles away from San Fran- cisco. Plague has recently appeared in Bolivia and Chili. The Atlantic coast of United States is also in constant danger of the importation of the plague from the eastern coast of South America, as well as from European, African and Asiatic ports. Less than 5,000 miles from New York plague is found in Bahia, Rio de Janiero and Buenos Aires. Directly or indirectly, therefore, our country is in commercial communication with all of the infected places in the the world, and as plague is a discase spread by rats which travel around the world in ships and is establishing more centers of infection every year, the United States must consider itself as always being menaced serious by bubonic plague. The League Health Organization, of which the Epidemiological Intelligence Service is a part, is a special application in the field of health questions of its whole systematic attempt to organize international relations. Its object is to advise the council and embly of the League in all international questions of public health, to establish closer re- lations between the health services of 4 i L its transmission from one country to an- i 7NN PN N N7 N NN N Va\ NN a\ N4 ININ W Tall and graceful tower of one of England’s most powerful broad- casting stations different countries, to act as a clearing house for information on public health questions and finally to bring about the agreement necessary for all interna- tional action in public health matters. It was late in 1922 that the Health Committee, at the suggestion of its Japa- nese member, and with the approval of the governmets concerned, sent a small mission on a six months Jjourney of in- vestigation to the chief ports in the Far East for the purpose of studying the different methods in force for sanitary, anti-epidemic and Yuarantine regula- tions, with particular attention to the necessity for preventing the spread of discases by sea borne traffic. This information was collected partly because it is useful in itself and partly because it might serve as the basis for a conference between the powers con- cerned for co-ordinating and tightening up sanitary and anti-epidemic measures throughout the Far East. This was important, for although tem- porarily overshadowed by the fresh giant source of land borne infection from Russia, sea borne diseases origi- nating in the Far East are the main enemy of sanitary authoritics all over the world. Dr. Norman White, head of the Epi- demic Commission, and former Sanitary Commissioner with the government of India, was selected for this mission. He first went to Siam for the Far Eastern Red Cross Conference (the first of its kind) and thence traveled to Singapore, Java, Hongkong, Shanghai; visited Japan, Formosa, Corca; thence went through South and North Manchuriz as far as Harbin; afterward going to Peking, Newchwang, Dairen, Manila, Tongking, Annam, Cochin-China and Cambodia, the Federated Malay Straits, Penang, Rangoon, Colombo, Calcutta, Simla and Bombay. Throughout the journey governments and local authorities gave every assist- ance in their power, and the mission was consequently able to bring home a mass of information concerning the epidemic diseases, such as cholera, bubonic plague, pneumonic plague and smallpox.