My dear Gorgas,Instead of being simply satisfied to make friends and draw your pay, it is worth doing your duty, to the best of your ability, for duty’s sake; and in doing this, while the indolent sleep, you may accomplish something that will be of real value to humanity. Your good friend, ReedDr. Walter Reed encouraging Dr. William Gorgas who went on to make history eradicating Yellow Fever in Havana, 1902 and Panama, 1906, liberating the entire North American continent from centuries of Yellow Fever epidemics.

~ William Crawford Gorgas

William Crawford Gorgas Comradeship Diligence Disease Control Doing The Right Thing Duty Ebola Encouragement Encouragement Quotes Epidemics Friendship Friendship True And Loyal Great Men Heroes Human Condition Leadership Loyalty Malaria Eradication Medical History Medicine Mosquitoes Perserverance Perserverance Quotes Public Health Teamwork Walter Reed Yellow Fever Yellow Fever Eradication

Fortunately for the cause of science and of humanity, we had as Governor-General of Cuba at that time General Leonard Wood, of the United States Army. General Wood had been educated as a physician, and had a very proper idea of the great advantages which would accrue to the world if we could establish the fact that yellow fever was conveyed by the mosquito, and his medical training made him a very competent judge as to the steps necessary to establish such fact. General Wood during the whole course of the investigations took the greatest interest in the experiments, and assisted the Board in every way he could.

~ William Crawford Gorgas

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I am sorry for you tonight, Mr. President. You are facing one of the greatest decisions of your career. Upon what you decide depends on whether or not you are going to get your canal. If you fall back upon the old methods of sanitation you will fail, just as the French failed. If you back up Dr. Gorgas and his ideas, and you let him make his campaign against mosquitoes, then you get your canal. I can only give you my advice; you must decide for yourself. There is only one way of controlling yellow fever and malaria, and that is the eradication of the mosquitoes. But it is your canal; you must do the choosing and you must choose tonight whether you are going to build that canal.

~ Thomas W. Martin

Thomas W. Martin Administration Block Impediments Leadership Malaria Eradication Panama Canal Public Health Science Yellow Fever

Despite 4,000 years of proven usefulness, quarantines seem to be to modern international public health experts as garlic is to a vampire.

~ T.k. Naliaka

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He was one of life’s great helpers, for he cleaned up foul places and made them sweet.

~ Thomas W. Martin

Thomas W. Martin Accomplish Great Things Character Disease Control Humility In Greatness Leadership Characteristics Legacy Malaria Malaria Eradication Medicine Mosquitoes Public Health William Crawford Gorgas Yellow Fever Yellow Fever Eradication

In times of stress and danger such as come about as the result of an epidemic, many tragic and cruel phases of human nature are brought out, as well as many brave and unselfish ones.

~ William Crawford Gorgas

William Crawford Gorgas Bravery Danger Disease Control Ebola Epidemics Human Behavior Human Nature Infectious Diseases Panic Public Health Sanitation Selfishness Yellow Fever

Eradicating mosquitoes is a means to an end. An uninfected mosquito is harmless to humans - just a nuisance. An infected mosquito is a danger.

~ T.k. Naliaka

T.k. Naliaka Aedes Aegypti Anopheles Gambiae Danger Disease Control Epidemics Eradication Health Malaria Malaria Eradication Means To An End Mosquito Borne Diseases Mosquitoes Public Health Yellow Fever Yellow Fever Eradication

Nature had found the perfect place to hide the yellow fever virus. It seeded itself and grew in the blood, blooming yellow and running red.

~ Molly Caldwell Crosby

Molly Caldwell Crosby Death Death And Dying Death And Sickness Disease Disease Prevention History Medicine Yellow Fever

In the middle of the cemetery is a grassy plane, strangely vacant. There are no granite tombs or crumbling concrete, just a sun-washed treeless patch of green known as No Man's Land. Here 1,500 unidentified bodies are buried. At one time, their skin burned with yellow fever; now they lie in a cool, dark place where long ago their arms and legs, hands and feet, were intertwined for eternity.

~ Molly Caldwell Crosby

Molly Caldwell Crosby Death And Dying Elmwood Graveyard Graveyards Medicine Yellow Yellow Fever

It is almost impossible for contemporaries to judge the true value of discoveries, or to give the proper position to the men of their own time who make these discoveries. The Surgeon-General of the Public Health Service expected the greatest results to flow from his commission of medical officers, but the conclusions of the Board turned out to be all wrong, while he did not notice the report from his own subordinate, Dr. H. R. Carter, which turned out to be pure gold and was one of the great steps in establishing the true method of the transmission of Yellow Fever.

~ William Crawford Gorgas

William Crawford Gorgas Assumptions Bias Disease Control Error Expectations Judging Medical Progress Public Health Scientific Discovery Scientific Progress Yellow Fever Yellow Fever Eradication

Will Brazilian antigambiae measures succeed in Africa? As time goes by it will almost certainly be found that an increasing number of areas can be cleaned of gambiae and be freed of gambiae-transmitted malaria. In Africa, where the species is already widely disseminated, it would seem logical to attempt eradication by beginning in the center of the area to be cleaned and working always outward. It has been demonstrated in Brazil that species eradication of Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae is feasible.

~ Fred Lowe Soper

Fred Lowe Soper Africa Brazil Disease Control Malaria Malaria Eradication Mosquitoes Public Health Yellow Fever

The case which I reported on September 26, 1901, was really the last which occurred in Havana. Of course we did not know it at the time, but this case marked the first conquest of yellow fever in an endemic center; the first application of the mosquito theory to practical sanitary work in any disease.

~ William Crawford Gorgas

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