_Prophylaxis._—Carefully avoid any kind of personal contact with water
which may by any possibility be infected from urine or fæces. Bathing,
wading, washing in, or drinking any such waters, are all dangerous.
Wherever possible, water which may be infected should be boiled. If
this cannot be done, sodium bisulphate tablets may be used; two of the
16-grain water-purifying tablets in a quart water-bottle full of water
are efficient. Filtration through a Pasteur-Chamberland or Doulton candle
is efficient, as it excludes the cercariæ. Bathing water can be rendered
safe for immediate use by the addition of undiluted Army cresol in a
dilution of 1 in 10,000. If the water is kept overnight, 1 in 90,000 is
sufficient, as the storage of water tends to diminish infection.
_Treatment._—Certain forms of antimony have been found to cure the
condition, but can only be administered by a medical man. Indeed,
either form of bilharziasis can be properly treated only under medical
supervision. If this is not obtainable, some relief can be afforded by
the use of urotropin and sedative drugs.
There are many other worm diseases which afflict man, but no good object
would be served by mentioning them in detail. Most of them can be
diagnosed with certainty only by a medical man using the microscope, and
they all require scientific treatment which is beyond the scope of the
ordinary traveller.
_Yellow Fever._
This disease, the “Yellow Jack” of naval historians, occurs, so far as is
known, only in parts of the New World and on the West Coast of Africa.
One attack usually protects permanently against a second.
_Cause._—Quite recently the organism has apparently been discovered. It
is a corkscrew-shaped parasite which exists in the blood, and which is
allied to, though not identical with, the parasites of relapsing fever
and tick fever. The infection is conveyed from one patient to another by
the mosquito _Stegomyia fasciata_, which is a black and white insect,
commonly known from its striped legs as the tiger mosquito. Incubation
period two to five days.
_Symptoms._—The onset of the disease is very sudden, the highest
temperature being reached almost at once; then follows a period of
remission or calm, the pulse becomes abnormally slow, and this stage is
usually either succeeded by convalescence, or the symptoms become worse
and the patient dies. Some of the symptoms much resemble malaria, but the
rapidity of the onset, severe pain in the forehead, eyes, and loins, the
early scantiness of the urine, the marked jaundice, the bright eyes, the
narrow red tongue, and the absence of pain about the spleen are fairly
characteristic.
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