Disease Control Quotes

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

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

Will 2015 ever be noted as the year Ebola was decisively downgraded from a lurid horror meme to just one of many commonly treatable diseases?

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

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

Eradication represents a complete change of philosophy and a recognition of the equal rights of all citizens to protection from infection, no matter where they live. Eradication, by its very nature, is public health with a conscience. The public health control officer can sleep tranquilly, salving his conscience with the thought that most of his responsibility has been discharged – that he did not have enough money to do any more. The eradicator knows that his success is not measured by what has been accomplished but, rather, is the extent of his failure indicated by what remains to be done. He must stamp out the last embers of infection in his jurisdiction. His slogan must be: ANY IS TOO MANY.

Fred Lowe Soper

Transparency is critical in public health and epidemics laypeople become either effective force-multipliers or stubborn walls.