the perusal of which shall not exceed fifteen minutes, but their publication will be in full. I request the Delegates that they observe the following rules, purely conventional, in case they are accepted:

In order that the time of the convention may be not taken up with other than technical matters the Delegates are requested to kindly submit, during the programs of the meeting, to the following rules:

1.-The Delegates will be called from the list in the alphabetical order of the countries which they represent.

2.-Conforming to article 7 of the temporary program the Delegates will present an extract of their reports or treatise, but the reading will occupy not to exceed fifteen minutes.

3.-During discussions the speakers will be allowed the floor but five minutes.

4. All Delegates who have the floor and who desire their speeches. placed on the record will submit them in writing to the Secretary at the same session during which it is delivered.

5. No delegate will be permitted to speak more than twice on the same subject, except the person making the motion, who is supposed to reply to all objections thereto.

6. Every resolution or motion on any subject submitted to this Congress should be referred to the Advisory Committee, which will study the subjects and decide whether or not they should be submitted to the consideration of the Congress.

Shall it be approved? It was approved.

Gentlemen: I beg to remind you that our regular session will be held at 3 o'clock in this same place, and that tonight at 8 o'clock the Superior Council of the Federal and Municipal Governments will give a banquet in your honor at the Municipal Palace.

The session adjourned.

Afternoon Session.

The afternoon session was called to order at 3 o'clock.

The report of the Committee on Credentials was approved without discussion, and reads as follows:

"The undersigned, members of the Committee on Credentials of the Third International American Sanitary Convention, having examined the credentials submitted to them, as well as the diplomatic notes on file in the Department of Foreign Relations on Mexico, relating to the appointment of delegates to said Convention, recommend that the credentials of the persons stated below be approved:

Brazil: Doctor Oswaldo Gonçalvez Cruz.

Colombia: Doctors Ricardo Gutiérrez Lee, and Ricardo Payán.

Costa Rica: Doctor Juan José Ulloa.

Cuba: Doctors Hugo Roberts, and Juan Guiteras.

Chile: Doctors Ernesto Sosa, and Pedro Lautaro Ferrer.

Ecuador: Doctor Juan Horacio Esteves.

United States: Doctors Walter Wyman, R. H. von Ezdorf, P. T. Straub, James Gatewood, Charles Harrington, W. G. Owen, Rhett Goode, and H. L. E. Johnson.

Guatemala: Doctors Salvador Ortega, and J. Azurdia.

Honduras: Dr. Luis Lazo Arriaga.

Mexico: Doctor Eduardo Licéaga, Dr. José Algara, Engineer Hilario Elguero.

Nicaragua: Doctor Gregorio Mendizábal.

Salvador: Doctor Rodolfo B. González.

Uruguay: Doctor Ernesto Fernández Espiro.

Mexico, December 2, 1907.-José Algara, Rhett Goode, Salvador Ortega."

Dr. Johnson, Delegate of the United States, moved that the ConsulGeneral of the United States in Mexico, Dr. W. M. Brumby, Dr. John Frick, and Dr. J. H. Stolpen, be allowed to attend the sessions. This motion was approved.

The Chairman: Let us commence our scientific work. The delegate of Brazil has the floor, and will read the extract of the paper he submits to the Convention in accordance with the rules and regulations approved by this Convention.

The delegate from Brazil read the extract which appears in the appendix, page 137.

Doctors Gutiérrez Lee, Ulloa, Roberts, Ferrer, Wyman, Lazo Arriaga, and Licéaga, delegates of Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Honduras, United States, and Mexico, respectively, then read extracts of their essays.

The reports which do not appear below will be found in full in the appendices.

Doctors Azurdia, of Guatemala, and González, of Salvador, requested to be allowed to read their reports at tomorrow's session, and the delegate of Nicaragua said that he would submit his report as soon as he received the data which he had asked the Government he represents to furnish him.

Dr. Julian J. Ulloa, delegate of Costa Rica, read a summary of the report referred to in the provisional program of the Convention. (See Appendix, page 160.

The delegate of Honduras read an extract from the report he will submit in accordance with the program of the Convention. (See Appendix, page 173.

THE CHAIRMAN. It would not be possible for me to make extracts from the report presented by the Mexican delegation, and for this reason, I shall only make brief remarks in connection with each one of them, in the short time at my disposal.

YELLOW FEVER.

Regarding yellow fever, I shall limit my remarks to a very few words.

The campaign which has been waged during four years, and as I said in the address I had the honor to read to this Convention, enabled us to destroy this epidemic in three months on the entire Gulf coast, and even the epidemic which extended to the interior of the country we controlled easily and completely, there remaining latent only the old foci of Veracruz and northern Yucatan. The disease has also appeared periodically in Tampico, and the intervals of these outbreaks sometimes have been as long as 20 years, to such an extent that persons

who were considered immune became again subject to the disease, but since November 3, 1903, there has not occurred a single case.

As I stated in the report I read this morning, no more than five cases of yellow fever have developed this year, distributed as follows: Two cases occurred on February 7th in a small village called Paraje Nuevo, in the Canton of Cordoba, State of Veracruz, one of which was discovered immediately, and the other patient went to Veracruz, where he was isolated, and died on the 9th of the same month. The patient of Paraje Nuevo was entirely isolated as soon as it was discovered that he had yellow fever, and no more cases occurred.

There was another case at Veracruz on September 5th, and I simply mention it for the information of the delegates who are familiar with this disease, so that they may take it into consideration. Said case was developed in the following manner: There is a building at the port of Veracruz, which the delegates have just seen, namely, the lighthouse office, situated more than 500 meters from the wharf, and which has just been built and decorated, the furniture thereof being entirely new. The only person living there was the keeper, and he was taken sick on September 5th. The two physicians who were called said it was a case of yellow fever.. The patient had entirely recovered by the 12th. Two cases occurred in Merida, one on the 19th and another on the 21st of March, and as soon as they were discovered the patients were isolated and the small foci of infection disappeared.

These are all the cases of yellow fever which have occurred throughout the Republic.

Said cases have been described in the report, and I consider it unnecessary to go into further detail concerning them, but I now beg to make a description of our organization for protection against yellow fever. This organization has its headquarters at this Capital, and is represented by a single sanitary corps, namely, The Superior Board of Health, under the Department of Gobernacion (Interior), which receives daily reports from all the sections of the Republic, and telegraphic reports of such new cases as may occur, said reports comprising the following points:

New cases on the day the telegraphic report is made.

Total number of cases from the first day of the year.

Those who have sufficiently recovered to leave the hospital on the date the report is made.

year.

Deaths occurring on the date of the report.
Total number of deaths from the first day of the
New foci of infection on the date of the report.
Total number of foci from the first day of the year.

Patients actually suffering from yellow fever who have been submitted to treatment.

Persons suspected of having the disease who were isolated on the day of the report.

Calls made at the dwellings of immunes.

Calls made at the dwellings of persons not immune, to ascertain if there are any fever patients.

Cases on trains.

Emptied water deposits.

Water deposits treated with petroleum.

Wells treated with petroleum.

This daily report enables us to discover the first suspicious case that may occur. The rules which the sanitary brigades observe in their operations are the following: As soon as the fever of a patient cannot be diagnosed as pneumonia or some other disease, said patient is isolated, and the house in which he lodged, as well as the surrounding houses, are disinfected.

Visits to houses of persons who are not immune are made in order to determine if there are any cases of illness therein.

Now I will take the liberty to show you some drawings which indicate how these visits are made in Merida and Veracruz.

Finally, we have one single center, namely, the Superior Board of Health, which receives daily reports, and brigades that may be mobilized as circumstances require. Since I have no time to discuss these points, I beg you to look at the pictures which I have made to that end and which will now be placed on the table.

BUBONIC PLAGUE.

Concerning this subject, I have to inform the delegates that since the month of May, 1903, there has not occurred a single case of bubonic plague in Mexico, and I should add that we succeeded in entirely eliminating this disease in six months. A circular has been distributed among you, which I shall submit to your consideration, and from which I shall now proceed to make some brief extracts.

I. In order to extinguish a transmissible disease in a city, the first step that should be taken is to remove the receptive element, that is to say, to diminish the population; but this should be done on the condition that only healthy persons shall leave the town, and in order to obtain this result, we established a vigilance service on all those who leave the town.

It is the duty of the commission appointed to issue certificates to all hale persons, and as soon as they have obtained these certificates they may leave the town, and we established this first rule: It is necessary to cause the greatest possible number of healthy persons to leave an infested town.

Second. All, or at least the greater part, of the inhabitants of the infested town should be vaccinated.

In Mazatlan, 3,575 persons were vaccinated, and the results obtained at Villa Unión were really wonderful, because all persons who were not ill were vaccinated. Before this operation was carried out, there occurred 34 cases, 9 of which were fatal. As soon as the disease developed, all healthy persons were vaccinated and the epidemic disappeared.

Ordinary means are not sufficient to discover suspicious cases of diseases. It is the duty of physicians to report cases of yellow fever, bubonic plague, cholera, and other plagues; but they cannot be expected to divine the diseases, so that until they have made their diagnosis, they can not make such a report. Then we established a system of house to house visits, which consists in calling at the house in order to find out if any persons are ill therein, but physicians do not ask whether there are any persons ill, but go into the house in an arbitrary

manner, and surprise the patients, so that these visits are made without the consent of the residents.

It is necessary to isolate all the patients, the same as is done in the case of all transmissible diseases, but this isolation must be done as follows: The suspected cases are kept in a special department. Any one having fever and swelling of the glands is regarded as suspicious. Those who really have the plague are sent to the lazaretto, where there are two departments, one for those who actually have the bubonic plague, and the other for convalescents, because it has been demonstrated that the disease is transmissible even four weeks after the patient has been cured.

The persons who had been near the patient remained, and tents and barracks were provided for them, situated a considerable distance from the town, and there they were fed and provided with clothes. This was a novelty we introduced, that is to say, we furnished all applicants with new clothes in place of the old ones. The disinfection. was made in old houses after the patient had left the premises, but inasmuch as in all our towns, and especially those situated in the hot lands, there are many houses of reeds or canes, the roofs of which consist of dry grass, and it being impossible to make a thorough disinfection, we decided to burn said huts. Therefore, we burnt 60 huts in Mazatlan.

In order to check the disease in the suburbs of the town, we did the following: Sanitary stations were established, which it was possible to do, because at the time there was no railroad running out of Mazatlan. After a journey by carriage or horseback, the first sanitary station was established and a second one was established at an equal distance, and still another established also at the same distance as the previous one, and so on to the towns bordering on the State of Sinaloa. If any patient escaped clandestinely from Mazatlan, he was recognized at the first station, and if the disease was not discovered there, it was discovered in the following one, or at the third station, and since at the station they furnished information concerning the place of destination of the patient, it was possible to make the proper investigation in co-operation with the civil authorities of the different places indicated, and to sequestrate the patient when he could be found, and in this way the transmission of the disease was prevented. I am going to show you a drawing illustrating the results obtained.

MALARIA.

It is impossible to obtain exact data concerning malaria. The number of patients can not be considered as exact data, because there are many who are afflicted with said disease, and yet they go about the streets and fulfil their duties, and, therefore, it is impossible for the health authorities to discover all the cases of malaria.

The data concerning mortality can not be used because, as to mortality, the physicians only state the immediate cause of death, in which malaria is not mentioned, but anemia and other causes.

This is the reason why I have limited myself to indicate, by means of colors on the map of the Republic, the regions wherein this disease more or less frequently prevails.

But now I am going to propose to you something new about this subject, and which I submit to your consideration.