f the
beginning of this fight:

"Eight years before, the mosquito-plague had infected the great,
busy, joyous metropolis of the south. Ignorant of the real
processes of the infection, New Orleans had fought it blindly,
frantically, in an agony of panic, and when at last the frost put
an end to the helpless city's plight, she lay spent and prostrate.
The yellow fever of 1905 came with a more formidable and unexpected
suddenness than that of 1897. It sprang into life like a secret and
armed uprising in the midst of the city, full-fledged and terrible.
But there arose against it the trained fighting line of scientific
knowledge. Accepting, with a fine courage of faith that most
important preventive discovery since vaccination, the mosquito
dogma, the Crescent City marshaled her defenses. This time there
was no panic, no mob-rule of terrified thousands, no mad rushing
from stunned inertia to wildly impractical action; but instead the
enlistment of the whole city in an army of sanitation. Every
citizen became a soldier of the public health. And when, long
before the plague-killing frost came, the battle was over, New
Orleans had triumphed not only in the most brilliant hygienic
victory ever achieved in America, but in a principle for which the
whole nation owes her a debt of gratitude."

For some time the authorities had been trying to keep secret the fact
that the disease was prevalent, but the rapidity with which it spread
made them realize that only united action on the part of all the
community would be of any avail. The Citizens Volunteer Ward
Organizations were organized for the purpose of fighting the mosquitoes
which were everywhere. To many the fight looked hopeless. The miles of
open gutters, the thousands of cisterns and little pools of standing
water everywhere furnished abundant breeding-places for the mosquitoes.
The ditches and ponds were drained or salted, the cisterns were
screened, infected houses were fumigated, yet the fever continued to
spread. Rains refilled the ditches, winds tore the screens from the
cisterns, the ignorant people of the French quarter refused to
cooeperate. At last the city in desperation appealed to the President for
aid. Surgeon J.H. White and a number of officers and men of the United
States Public Health and Marine Hospital Service soon took charge of the
work. This was continued