Prevention of Yellow Fever. 
The following letter is an epitome of the reasons demand 
ing an immediate and thorough investigation of a subject 
which involves the social, industrial and commercial pros- 
perity of an immense territory embracing some of the 
fairest and richest portions of the Union. 
A favorable solution of the question will throw open to 
capital and emigration vast fields of enterprise from which 
both must otherwise be diverted. 
New Orleans, Dec. 31, 1885. 
Geo. M. Sternberg, M. D., Major and Surgeon, U. S. A.: 
Dear Doctor—Your letter, just received, is confirmatory 
of the lively interest you feel in the subject of an investiga- 
ting commission to determine the feasibility and value of 
inoculation with the causative agent of yellow fever as a 
preventive of that disease. I am glad to see that you fully 
understand the proposed commission as unrestricted in the 
scope of its observations, with liberty not only to investi- 
gate the claims of Freire and Carmona, but also to push to 
a conclusion, if possible, the principles and methods of 
Pasteur, Koch and others in the special application of them 
to yellow fever. 
The terms of the bill creating this commission were care- 
fully stated with an express view to untrammeled action in 
the field of discovery ; any addition to present knowledge 
is in the line of its duty. 
Whatever the crudities that may obscure the work of the 2 
Mexican, Central and South American observers, it is cer- 
tain that they are attacking the yellow fever problem in a 
direction heretofore untried, but in line with inoculation 
and vaccination against small-pox, and Pasteur’s wonderful 
methods of protecting flocks and herds against charbon, 
domestic fowl against chicken cholera, and now, as this 
great and benevolent scientist proclaims, the human being 
and animals against hydrophobia. 
Surely^the protection by inoculation against yellow fever, 
which is typically a disease of one attack, would strike the 
mind of any one as far more reasonable than to suppose 
he efficacy of such a method in granting immunity from 
hydrophobia. 
So far from anticipating the possibility of such protection, 
the latter disease is about the last physicians would have 
expected of being amenable to a measure akin to vaccina- 
tion. 
When we look back upon the apalling calamity of 1878 
and consider what an immense territory was invaded by 
yellow fever, the dreadful mortality, the incalculable com- 
mercial and industrial loss, together with the severe check 
upon the progress of the material welfare, indeed, of all the 
elements of civilization in the South, it matters not if Car- 
mona and Freire had never existed ; it is still imperative 
that a commission should be sent into the breeding places 
of that scourge, to apply there the startling discoveries re- 
vealed in Europe ; to test the possibility of yellow fever 
being no exception to what seems now to be a natural law 
of infectious diseases, and to give to our country as quickly 
as possible whatever benefits may be derived from the 
latest developments of modern science, 
The field of Bacteriology is being opened to the adven- 
ture of genius in the discovery, not only of the causes of 
pestilence, but, above all, of the power of limiting and sup- 
pressing it. 
It offers a hope, and a brilliant one, of putting into the 
hands of our people the means of self-protection. 3 
Until that field has been exhaustively cultivated, so far 
as relates to yellow fever, neither health authorities nor 
the general government dare assert that all that can be has 
been done, no measure of relief left untried ! 
As to the possible results of investigation in this field, 
the utterances of any man affirming or denying are equally 
valueless and without the slightest weight, inasmuch as the 
truth is not ascertainable except by direct experiment. 
The question is not one of opinion, but, like any other 
problem in physics, is one of fact, and the necessities of an 
oft-afflicted and profoundly injured people demand a 
demonstration. 
The appointed guardian at the gateway of the Valley of 
the Mississippi, the Board of Health of the State of Louisi- 
ana is compelled by every sentiment of humanity, by every 
appeal of duty and of prudence, to rise above the doubts 
and objections urged by personal bias of opinion, and to 
move forward with persistent energy in the execution of a 
plan which offers the possible emancipation of the Ameri- 
can people from the dominion «>f a pestilence which has 
cost too many tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of 
millions of dollars to allow of computation here. 
If we fail, my dear doctor, we fail in a glorious effort, 
sustained at all time, whether in success or in failure, by 
the consciousness of duty earnestly performed. In either 
event we feel assured of your entire sympathy. With New 
Year congratulation, I remain yours very truly, 
Joseph Holt, M. D., 
President Board of Health, State of Louisiana.