Can We Live In The Tropics?

The question of the white man's abilitj to conquer the tropics and to make for himself a permanent home in those delightful regions is one that has hitherto possessed a purely academie interest for physicians in this country, but the fortunes of war and projects of annexation are making it probable that this will soon be changed. Porto Rico, the Sandwich Islands, and the Philippines are all tropical islands, and, if they, one and all, come under our flag, doubtless many of our citizens will go thither to seek their fortunes, and the question of acclimatization will at once become a most practical one. The popular belief that the white man cannot successfully colinize the tropics is disproved by the fact that he has done it. It is undoubtedly trun that many northerners who go to equatorial regions contract disease there and die, but in the majority of sueh cases the man is the victim of his obstinate unwillingness to change his habits in respect to eating, drinking and clothing and to conform his mode of life to the new conditions. Dr. Patrick Manson, than whom there is no greater authority on the pathology of equatorial regions, began his remarks with the confession that in former years, under the influence of early teaching, he shared in the pessimistic opinions then current about tropical colonization by the white races. Ir. recent years, however, hls views on this subject had undergone a complete revolution- a revolution tnat began with with the establishment of the germ theory of disease. Ae now firmly believed in the possibility of tropical colonization by the white races. Heat and moisture, he contended, were not in themselves the direct cause of any important tropical disease, The direct cause of 69 per cent of these diseases are gerrm. When tnese geruis ana ineir iiauius ai e known fully, victory will be within man's grasp. Most micro-parasites when they are once within the body are fairly safe. But these same parasites, in order that their respactive species may keep in existence by spreading from one host to another, leave the human body, and during this necessary extra corpórea! state they are eminently vulnerable. To kill them is simply a matter of knowledge and the application of this knowledge- that is to say