"The dread of yellow fever might reasonably have discouraged the
enlistment of volunteers, who could foresee that they would be needed in
Cuba during the rainy season, but the offers and applications show that
the Government could take into the service to-morrow 500,000 men,
instead of the 125,000 already called, if it should consent to accept
them. The mortality reports of the Spanish army are appalling, but
yellow fever has not been the most deadly of the diseases with which the
Spanish soldiers have contended. The number of deaths in the military
hospitals on the island last year was 32,534, and of the 30,000 sick men
sent back to Spain at least 10 per cent. must have died, for many of
them were beyond cure. The reported deaths were distributed as follows,
in round numbers: Typhoid fever and dysentery, 14,500; malarial fever,
7000; yellow fever, 6000; other diseases, 5000. And 2583 persons died of
small-pox in Havana. But the resident inspector of our Marine Hospital
Bureau (which is a kind of National Board of Health) reports that only
one of the five large military hospitals in Havana is in good sanitary
condition; the others are little better than pest-houses, and one of
them is characterised by the inspector as 'the filthiest building in the
city.' The Spanish soldiers have been sacrificed to the greed and
corruption of their commanders and the prevailing mediæval ignorance of
sanitation.
In the recent official indictments of Spanish misrule in Cuba, scarcely
anything has been said about the perpetual menace of yellow fever
infection to which this country has been subjected, and to the enormous
actual cost in the United States of fever epidemics, the seeds of which
were introduced from the island. Of late years all our yellow fever
epidemics have come from Cuba, and the infection has entered our
Southern States in spite of the most elaborate precautions and defences.
Many years ago the disease was sometimes brought from Vera Cruz; but
Mexico, under the effective and progressive rule of Diaz, has cleansed
her infected ports, and they are no longer to be feared. An epidemic of
this fever on our southern seaboard, even if it be of short duration and
attended by slight mortality, causes very great alarm--because the
ravages of memorable visitations are recalled by the people--and
paralyses commerce and industry throughout a wide area. The actual cost
of such an epidemic may be 100,000,000 dols. The epidemic of last year
entailed a loss of a third or a half of that sum. No relief can be
expected so long as the island shall suffer under Spanish misrule. But
now we may look forward with confidence to the time, not far distant,
when this nuisance shall be abated."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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