Proof of the endemic origin of yellow fever in West Africa / by Sir Rubert W. Boyce.
- Rubert William Boyce
- Date:
- 1910
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Proof of the endemic origin of yellow fever in West Africa / by Sir Rubert W. Boyce. Source: Wellcome Collection.
3/6
![ed Reprinted from the BRiTIsH MEDICAL JOURNAL; December 3rd, 1910. PROOF OF THE ENDEMIC ORIGIN OF YELLOW Nan nye An arte FEVER IN WEST AFRICA. BY SIR RUBERT W. BOYCE, F.R.S., HOLT PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF aie Sok A LARGE amount of misconception exists upon the question of race susceptibility. It is sometimes supposed that the Latin races are the most susceptible to yellow fever, others think that the black races are immune. As a matter of fact, the most recent observations prove the accuracy of the old writers of authority upon yellow fever. Writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries con- cluded that no race was exempt, and that the apparent exemption in the black races, or in the Creoles, would readily disappear if these people went to Europe for a long stay. Modern observations prove that all races are susceptible, provided they come from climates where yellow fever does not exist. That, m fact, it is entirely a question of immunity. Those living in a country where disease is endemic at a very early period in their life get an attack of the disease, which naturally confers a certain degree of immunity ; later they may get subsequent attacks, but each successive attack is less serious; when manhood is reached the subject is in all prokability completely immune. It is this fact which explains why yellow fever has always been regarded asea diseaseg ofenewcomers; it does not matter in the very least whether the newcomers are Scandinavians, British, Latins, Syrians, Mohammedans, Tartars, Chinese, blacks, or whites, the question alone is, Are they newcomers or not? Have they resided for a long term of years in a country where there is no yellow fever? It is an old observation that those blacks who resided in yellow-fever-free districts in the United States suffered from yellow fever when they reached a town where it was prevalent. During the great yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia blacks and whites were equally affected, and there are [642/10]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33436125_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
