THE 
Sanitary Protection 
OF 
NEW ORLEANS, 
MUNICIPAL AND MARITIME. 
BY 
JOSEPH HOLT, M.D., 
President of the Board of I Tea 'tth’oftlie State of Louisiana 
READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION, 
Washington, D. C., December 10, 1885. 
REPRINT FROM “THE SANITARIAN,” JANUARY, 1886. THE 
Sanitary Protection 
OF 
NEW ORLEANS, 
MUNICIPAL AND MARITIME. 
BY 
JOSEPH HOLT, M.D., 
President of the Board of Health of the State of Louisiana. 
READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION, 
Washington, D. C., December 10, 1885. 
REPRINT FROM “THE SANITARIAN,” JANUARY, 1886. THE SANITARY PROTECTION OF NEW ORLEANS, 
MUNICIPAL AND MARITIME. 
By Joseph Holt, M.D., President of the Board of Health of the State of 
Louisiana. 
In order to avoid the error of prolixity—that unpardonable 
sin against intelligence and imposition upon amiable endurance 
—I shall present the subject of this paper in the form of gen- 
eralizations, in the exposition of principles underlying action, 
rather than the narration of plans and specifications of munici- 
pal drainage and sewerage of buildings, machinery, and general 
paraphernalia of quarantine stations in weary detail. 
Furthermore, to particularize and to dwell upon our achieve- 
ments longer than to state that the health authorities of 
Louisiana, acting in perfect accord with advanced sanitarians 
of our country, sustained and encouraged by the moral weight 
of their consent, have enforced in practice the established doc- 
trines of sanitary science, would savor of boastful pretension 
foreign to the purpose of this paper and contrary to the spirit 
of the Louisiana State Board of Health. 
With feelings of humble gratitude, not of pride, we declare 
our earnest belief that, guided by the light of preventive medi- 
cine, of this star newly risen in the firmament of our destiny, 
in the adopted methods of “ maritime sanitation,” we have 
given to the people of New Orleans a new hope ; to the people 
of the Mississippi Valley the highest known guarantee against 
the introduction of pestilence ; while at the same time we 
have removed from commerce a bar heretofore insuperable. 
The systematic sanitation of New Orleans is grand, almost 
limitless in possibilities, in realization prospective, a great 
achievement in the future. Its status is identical with that 
of faith, “ the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen.” 4 
The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
On account of geographical position, its nearness to the 
tropic, and location on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico (a vast 
body of warm water), together with its situation on a low 
swamp soil or alluvium, New Orleans, of all cities in the 
United States, requires a most thorough system of drainage 
and sewerage, as the foundation of health and comfort, upon 
which her hope of prosperity depends. 
The exactions of sanitary law, imposed by a combination of 
physical conditions—high temperature, excessive humidity, 
lack of natural drainage, low situation, almost on a sea-level— 
are peremptory and severe. 
Disobedience, whether the excuse be ignorance, poverty, or 
negligence, is more certain of rebuke than a like transgression 
on the part of communities in higher latitudes. 
We are an unfortunate demonstration that justice, in the 
realm of Nature, is indeed blind, and her scales out of balance ; 
that even Nature is partial in the execution of judgment 
for violated law. Those negligences which she allows as mere 
venalities in Washington, New York, Baltimore, or St. Louis, 
become most heinous and outrageous violations in the case of 
New Orleans. 
To illustrate this, let us for a moment suppose Chicago and 
New Orleans, moved by some gigantic force, suddenly to ex- 
change places, the sanitary condition of each remaining the 
same ! 
Upon the approach of the so-called danger period of next 
summer, which city, do you imagine, would look forward to 
the time with anxious foreboding, tinged with terror, and 
which with a smile of complacency ? 
This explanation of the relation of New Orleans to sanitary 
law is not offered as an apology for existing conditions. On 
the contrary, it stands in judgment against us ; for, however 
just or unjust, Nature is unmoved by sentiment, nor can the 
course of natural law be altered by apology. 
Of us is much required, and there is no extenuation nor ap- 
peal ! Her demands are imperative, and must be satisfied. 
Let none of my remarks be interpreted as disrespectful of 
Nature, or as taking her to task for the unequal distribution 
of the consequences of violated law. 
Being a citizen of New Orleans, gentlemen, I am afraid of The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
5 
Nature. She is a loving mother to you, but a step-mother to 
us. Generous to a fault, she lavishes upon us in wasteful pro- 
fusion her precious favors. She gives us in abundance the 
best of food ; canopies us under skies of softest tint ; fans us 
with balmy breezes, and decorates herself in perfumed robes 
of loveliest flowers, in the ample folds of which she carries, 
concealed, a rod, ready with a will to lay it on. 
With natural advantages of a kind such as, with care on our 
part, would soon make New Orleans a desirable place of 
abode, second to no maritime city in the world, we have the 
highest double incentive to effort, the richest reward for in- 
telligent, persevering, laborious obedience on the one hand, 
and certainty of punishment for inaction on the other. 
But let us placate Nature by singing her praises, if -she is 
not equally insensible to praise and anathema. She is kind ! 
she is indulgent and considerate ! 
Seeing how little we have done to help ourselves, it is a 
matter for congratulation and of astonishment that conse- 
quences have not been more severe. 
However ready in the inflictions of chastisement, Nature is 
constantly working in our behalf. We have neglected to pro- 
vide adequately for the removal of sewage matter, while she 
continually tries to condone the fault by the destructive proc- 
ess of oxidation. She has generously washed our streets and 
back-yards every day, for weeks at a time, with millions of 
tons of pure, fresh water, and has never yet presented a bill 
for her services. 
Having no sufficient drainage or sewerage, we would long 
since have been in woeful plight but for this constant operation 
of natural law in providing ways and means for our preser- 
vation. 
It is a glorious tribute to the philanthropic zeal of sanita- 
rians, and a positive demonstration of the effectiveness of their 
labors, seconded by the mighty power of an intelligent press, 
that the people of New Orleans are progressing in practical 
knowledge appertaining to public health and comfort, at a rate 
exceeding the expectation of the most hopeful of ten years 
ago. 
Under the constant attrition of teaching, this continual 
iteration of precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, 6 
The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
there a little, the whole mass of population is becoming pro- 
gressively comprehensive of their necessities, more intelligently 
appreciative of their surroundings, of the causes of discomfort 
predisposing to sickness, and impressed with an earnest desire 
for improvement. 
As a people we are venturing upon the high-road to refor- 
mation. The popular sentiment is becoming responsive to the 
guidance of science, and appreciative of the value of preven- 
tive medicine. 
The educational process is at best a slow one ; even with an 
individual often tedious ; how much the more slowly progres- 
sive must we expect to be the movement along new channels 
of thought, in the acquisition of ideas projected upon higher 
planes of knowledge, the vast intellect of a great city ! 
New Orleans is moving onward and upward to achievements 
which shall place her, by universal consent, in the position she 
should rightfully occupy among her sisters, in the foremost 
rank of American cities. 
Holding the thread of her own fate, her destiny must be 
self-determined. At this moment she is moving to the estab- 
lishment of systematic sanitation to overcome the defects which 
have cost her so dearly. Even now the main question of pro- 
viding ways and means for the efficient drainage and sewerage 
of the city is being urged with a general interest and earnest- 
ness which foreshadow substantial results. 
The proposition is being discussed of creating a Board of 
Public Works, untrammelled by political entanglements, and 
not subject to the changes incident to party warfare—a board 
composed of citizens chosen for their integrity, clear judg- 
ment, their zeal and efficiency as public-spirited men. 
Such a body, constituted for an ample period, with asso- 
ciate engineers competent to give expert consideration to all 
phases of the problem, would soon formulate a general plan, 
which would be carried out, step by step, with immediate 
amelioration of present necessities, in the direction of perma- 
nent improvement and relief, and that without creating a debt 
or requiring the levy of a burdensome tax. 
With a comprehensive plan under such supervision, every 
dollar would be accounted for and placed where it could do 
the greatest public good. The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
7 
The sanitary redemption of New Orleans from being a 
dream of the future would soon become an assured fact. An 
era of prosperity would open upon Louisiana with such a 
golden radiance as would send a thrill of unfeigned joy into 
the heart of every American, whose national pride and 
patriotic love of this glorious unity is generous, and as broad 
as the scope of this broad land, which is his heritage. 
THE SANITARY PROTECTION OF NEW ORLEANS—MARITIME. 
Maritime sanitation has taken the place of quarantine on the 
sea-board approaches to New Orleans. 
The term is in itself a complete acknowledgment and a 
declaration of allegiance to the germ theory of the great pesti- 
lential infections, just as the word quarantine carries within; 
itself the essential idea of prolonged detention ; a virtual ac- 
knowledgment of utter ignorance of all the conclusions estab- 
lished by modern observation of the phenomena of these dis- 
eases, confirmed by microscopic research and experimental 
tests in the announcements of Pasteur, Koch, Klien, in the 
voices from the far regions of the tropics, Carmona, Freire, 
and their able coadjutors, and last, but of the first magnitude 
in this blazing galaxy of lights, Sternberg ! 
The inevitable conclusions deduced from the observed con- 
duct of these diseases have compelled the germ theory*of their 
nature. 
It is no ingenious figure of the imagination, but a doctrine 
hammered into shape by sheer force of logic. Every phe- 
nomenon of measles, scarlatina, diphtheria, small-pox, cholera, 
and yellow-fever gives a sledge-hammer blow, driving into us 
the idea of a living organism, a definite entity, as the essential 
cause of each, differing in kind according to the disease. 
Laying aside certain hypercritical sophistries and the off- 
hand denunciations of constitutional objectors, even against 
Jenner himself, we may now declare that the germ nature of 
these diseases has passed from the form of a diluted theory 
into that of a crystallized fact, so that, in contending against 
the introduction of pestilence along the highways of com- 
merce, we now no longer oppose mysterious phantoms with 
the suggestions of superstition, but fight a real and defined. 8 
The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
enemy with substantial shot and shell, so to speak, potent to 
destroy. 
Even in our municipal management bonfires of tar-barrels, 
religious processions, and long-drawn prayers no longer count 
as disinfectants. These methods have swamped us invariably. 
Their failure has compelled us to rely upon the intellectual 
spirit within ourselves, and to change the personality of our 
enemy. 
We no longer fight the machinations of the devil, or the 
devil himself, but a microscopic germ—a living ferment—a 
little leaven, which if not speedily destroyed soon “ leaveneth 
the whole lump.” 
If there is any truth in the germ theory—and no proposition 
admits of clearer proof confirmed by demonstration—then may 
we confidently declare that ” Maritime Sanitation,” as con- 
ducted in the stations of Louisiana, is worthy of reliance in 
■offering the highest relative guarantee against importation. 
If the essential element or originating principle of small- 
pox, yellow-fever, and cholera can be demonstrated to exist 
■within a definite and circumscribed limit, as in the field of a 
-microscope, on the point of a scalpel, within the compass of a 
hypodermic syringe or the hull of a ship, and is capable of in- 
definite extension beyond that limit, it is conclusive that the 
essential cause or virus, having power of extension, can only 
do so by reproduction. It is, therefore, a living entity ; and 
being definable in loco, it can be destroyed in loco. 
This is the sum of all the law governing maritime sanitation. 
The hypodermic syringe or the infected ship we may de- 
stroy with fire ; the pestilential infection within will likewise 
be destroyed. 
The same line of reasoning extends to other agents than 
fire. If every known organic form of life can be destroyed 
with the bi-chloride of mercury, the concentrated fumes of 
sulphurous acid gas and exposure in the superheated steam- 
drying chamber, the conclusion is inevitable that hypothetical 
organic forms can also be destroyed. Seeing the germ satisfies 
the intelligence and confirms belief, but is not essential to the 
validity of disinfection. 
To strengthen every part of this position, we have accumu- 
lating assurances that these sometime hypothetical forms are The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
9 
being isolated, cultivated, photographed jn testimony of their 
reality. / 
Under a pressure of inconceivable intensity carbon, in a 
vague and unsubstantial form, suddenly crystallizes into a 
hard and sharp-cutting fact, called the diamond ; so may these 
assurances of experimental microscopists, under the prodigious 
pressure of unbelieving opposition, crystallize into ascertained 
facts, into sharp-edged brilliants, wherewith we may yet be 
enabled to cut the bands which have fettered the human race 
under the bondage of pestilence. The experiences of Jenner 
may yet repeat themselves. 
When the decks, cabins, forecastle, hold, bilge, and every 
available part of a vessel, together with all the baggage and 
apparel of every person on board, has been thoroughly wetted 
with the solution—one to one thousand—of the bi-chloride of 
mercury, and the entire atmosphere within displaced with the 
concentrated sulphurous acid gas, we have availed ourselves 
of the highest assurance as yet offered by science in the prac- 
ticable and speedy disinfection of a ship. At present there is 
but one guarantee of a more positive kind—total destruction 
by fire. 
When the process has been accomplished by the use of ap- 
paratus competent to do the work, there remains but one 
source of danger in the subsequent outbreak of the disease, 
cholera or yellow-fever already incubating in the system. 
Here again the entire weight of testimony, established by 
such exact observations as furnish a scientific test, confirmed 
by the experiments of recent investigators, shows that the 
deadly ferment of these two diseases, once received into the 
human system, is not dilatory or uncertain in its incubatory 
movement, like that of small-pox, diphtheria, scarlatina, or 
hydrophobia, but, like the mortal virus of the cobra, is al- 
most explosive in the rapidity of its action. 
That a person should move about in the routine of his daily 
life, for days or weeks, with the germs of yellow-fever engen- 
dering in his blood, as of cholera upon the mucous surface of 
the intestinal tract, and the victim, unaware of his disorder, is 
contrary to expectation, to common-sense, and to all the teach- 
ings of carefully guarded observation and scientific research. 
However common the reported cases of prolonged incuba- 10 
The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
tion, in every instance clearly ascertained movement of expo- 
sure, and in the experimental tests declared to be true, the 
period of incubation has been remarkably short : usually 
within forty-eight hours ; never beyond three days. 
Several occurrences in our quarantine experience of the past 
season have been singularly corroborative of this statement. 
To give ample margin, however, and to keep on the safe 
side of possibilities, if a vessel has cleared from or touched at 
an infected port we detain her five days. 
In the case of a vessel actually infected, she is remanded to 
the station provided for such vessels only, where she is 
treated with exceptional rigor, and held for a period of seven 
to ten days, from the date of removal to hospital of her sick 
and completion of the disinfection. 
Under any other system than that of sanitation of the most 
exacting kind neither days nor weeks of detention can afford 
reasonable safety. Instances of failure can be multiplied to 
weariness. One of the latest will suffice : Cholera broke out 
in the harbor of Toulon on a ship from Saigon, in Chinese 
waters, where she had been exposed to cholera several months 
before, without cases in the interim. 
Yellow-fever and cholera are due to living organisms. To 
destroy these directly is the object of our efforts. 
I declare my conviction that the bi-chloride of mercury is 
potent to effect their instant destruction, and that it possesses 
every qualification as a disinfectant, above all others, to be 
desired. 
Moving in the line of its reputation established in surgery, it 
is equally to be relied upon in municipal and maritime sanita- 
tion. Pre-eminently a germicide, colorless, stainless, odorless, 
not injurious to fabrics, perfectly safe to handle for months at 
a time, and exceedingly cheap, it is impossible to imagine a 
substance more efficient, and free from objection in practice. 
The addition of a little indigo to the solution will abun- 
dantly warn any one against drinking it, the only danger that 
might attend its use. 
Having had under observation a considerable body of men 
working in it daily, as though it were rain-water, and ships mak- 
ing repeated voyages, and upon each return drenched with it 
without injurious effect, is the highest testimony of its safety. The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
11 
Unincumbered with objections which belong to other disin- 
fectants, through the efficiency of this agent we are enabled to 
transfer the war against pestilence to a higher plane of decisive 
action, and to wage a fight, whether on ship-board or in town, 
in every respect parallel with that of fighting fire. 
The surest preventive of a conflagration is to quench the 
first spark ; the surest preventive of an epidemic is to act upon 
the mere possibility of the existence of infection. 
Not proclaiming itself by such outward evidences as light 
and heat and smoke, but incognizable to the senses, we must 
wage fight upon the suspicion of a pestilential manifestation. 
In maritime sanitation we subject to treatment every ship 
coming from cholera or yellow-fever regions, regardless of bills 
of health, however clean ; while in municipal sanitation we 
attack, in loco, the slightest signs of these diseases. 
To cite an instance : Small-pox declared itself in nine dis- 
tinct foci during the past winter in the most crowded parts 
of this city. Being treated with these agents of destruction, 
applied with the extremest exaction of scientific requirement, 
the disease did not spread beyond the room of the primary 
cases. 
If the schedule of symptoms in a single case is such as 
would indicate and be diagnosed cholera or yellow-fever dur- 
ing an epidemic of one or the other of these diseases, we act 
promptly in the enforcement of isolation and precautionary 
measures of disinfection, as though assured of the worst. 
While willing to call the case “suspicious,” we are deter- 
mined to have no second case to confirm the nature of the first. 
Ceasing to be sticklers, for an exact diagnosis, we are content 
to resist even the appearance of evil. 
Intangible, imponderable, unrecognizable by the unaided 
senses, and even with the best of aid only to the trained 
master in microscopy, the subtile nature of the essential agent 
of pestilence compels in practice the retention of the term 
“suspicious, ” as applied to first cases of which we cannot be 
positive ; the term must be retained, however much it may 
provoke harsh criticism and angry censure of those engaged 
in trade. 
These demand that there shall be no report until every 
doubt is removed, and the_ nature of the disease confirmed, 12 
The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
which can only be in the repetition of cases and hopeless con- 
signment to an epidemic. 
It would be indeed a sorrowful recital to recount the 
disasters wrought through the powerful influence of a hid- 
eously selfish and depraved trade interest. 
This narrow-minded, cold-hearted element is found in every 
business community, and in some is predominant. 
Ignorant, arrogant, utterly unscrupulous in the means to 
attain its ends, pretending to exceptional respectability while 
inciting the popular hue-and-cry in its behalf, it essays with 
malignant vehemence, upon occasion, to subordinate all 
authority, every principle of honor, of humanity, and of 
prudence, bending all honesty, all obligation, and all law to 
the purposes of its own will—the will of a class, of whom it 
has been said, “ Their ledger is their Bible, and gold their 
god.” 
Feeble-spirited and superserviceable health authorities and 
even bureaus of government, timorously submitting to the 
dictum of this unrighteous mammon, have suppressed the 
truth ; have falsified reports ; and have consigned States and 
nations to the ravages of unresisted pestilence, when thou- 
sands of lives might have been saved, at least, by flight, and 
distant communities, forewarned, might have protected them- 
selves. 
Witness the outrageous transactions in France, Spain, Italy 
during the last few months, and the repeated occurrences in 
cities of our own land, in times gone by. 
As custodians of a sacred trust, health authorities must be 
true to their allegiance, and that allegiance demands perfect 
candor and timely warning to the people ; not only of a com- 
munity, but of all communities whom it may concern. Yea, 
more ! This principle of action should be woven as a living 
thread into the texture of international relations. It should 
exist as an essential element in the comity of nations. 
Health authorities must be courageous and ever ready for 
any sacrifice in resisting and putting under foot the insolent 
power that would make of them instruments for perfidious ser- 
vice. 
The subject of this seeming digression is so woven into the 
affairs of practical municipal and maritime sanitation as to The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
13 
necessitate its fullest recognition as an incorporated part. 
Burdened with annoyance and tempestuous contention if re- 
sisted, it is well baited with tempting morsels, set in snares of 
disgrace, if allowed. 
Let the world beware of a board of health with commercial 
alliance in a line of policy. 
A board of health with policy is a board without truth ! 
The one must subordinate the other. 
As sanitarians and officers in the health trusts of the people, 
we are working in the teachings of the Great Master. 
We cannot serve God and Mammon. 
The relation of New Orleans to its sanitary protection in- 
volves the welfare not only of the city and State, but of sur- 
rounding States and of the Mississippi Valley. 
To express in its simplest terms the direct dependence of 
the city upon its health protection, let us suppose these ques- 
tions propounded by you at this moment : Why is New 
Orleans as it is ? Why not more progressive—a manufacturing 
and general industrial as well as a commercial city ? Why does 
not her commerce sweep the circle of the world at all times ; 
and, considering her age in relation with the age and growth of 
other American cities, why has she not a million of inhabitants ? 
I would promptly answer you in a compound word—Yelloiv- 
Fever! The visitations of small-pox and cholera have not 
afflicted us to retard our growth more than you yourselves have 
felt them. 
The difference is due to one thing only—to a something 
superadded to the general sum of human miseries, which you 
have not. 
The whole life of that people has been touched corruptibly 
with the venom of the yellow plague, oozing as an exhalation 
from the hovering pinion-tips of the Angel of Death ! the 
malignancy of hell on earthj/potential ! 
To pluck from those hateful wings the plague-distilling 
quills, above the reach of mortal hand, may yet be done by 
science. 
Moving in paths of her selection, the energies of the people 
will surely accomplish the redemption of New Orleans. 
Under her instruction we are concentrating in our defence 
the whole armament of germ-destroying agents ; while, under 14 
The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
her instruction, Freire and Bourgeron, in Brazil, Carmona and 
his distinguished pupils throughout Mexico and at Panama, all 
of them in the nursery and hotbed of yellow-fever, pursuing 
their researches in the lines indicated by Pasteur, but first by 
Jenner, are piling up evidence in such irresistible masses, and 
all with the sanction and indorsement of their respective 
governments, as to command the hope that our salvation is 
even now at the threshold. 
The promises of immunity by the inoculation of the essen- 
tial germ or agent causative of yellow-fever are freely offered 
us. 
Every demand of humanity and prudence compels a 
thorough investigation of this question. 
To pass judgment ad captandem and ignore it without a 
test would be grossly unscientific and criminally indifferent. 
As the apostles of sanitation in America, as fellow-soldiers 
in a warfare against misery and death, I appeal to you in 
behalf of Louisfana, and of Texas, and of all the States of 
the Southern Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and of Tennessee, to 
indorse with your approval and to present as the earnest desire 
of this composite body, the American Public Health Asso- 
ciation, and Boards of Health of the United States, the fol- 
lowing petition : 
Whereas, The question of immunity from yellow-fever is 
so intimately connected with the social, industrial, and com- 
mercial growth of Tennessee, the Southern Atlantic, and the 
Gulf States of the Union as to determine the destiny of Mem- 
phis, Charleston, Savannah, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, 
and Galveston ; and, 
Whereas, A large and accumulating mass of testimony that 
the power of protecting the unacclimated against yellow-fever 
has been discovered and proven in the inoculation of the essen- 
tial germ or cause of the disease by methods distinctly formu- 
lated and available, these aforesaid declarations and numerous 
instances cited in corroboration, emanating from medical 
scientists at the head of the biological departments in the 
highest institutions of learning in Mexico and Brazil, author- 
ized by and bearing the indorsement of their respective govern- 
ments : 
Resolved, That we, the representatives of the Boards of 
Health in the several States of this Union, and we, the officers 
and members of the American Public Health Association, re- 
garding the question as pre-eminently a vital issue, as one, in The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans. 
15 
its assumptions, true or false, and, if true, of incalculable 
worth, surpassing the computation of many millions of dollars, 
and to the saving of tens of thousands of lives of our own peo- 
ple, that we hereby petition and urge upon both branches of 
Congress, now assembled, the appointment by the President 
of a commission for the purpose of making a complete investi- 
gation of, and reporting after a thorough examination of the 
methods pursued, their effectiveness in protecting the unac- 
climated against the yellow-fever infection, together with all 
associated observations and experiments that may be ascer- 
tained. 
Resolved, That in the aforesaid petition the commission shall 
be stated to consist of three persons, one of whom shall be of 
known ability and special attainment in biological research, 
particularly in the department of microscopic investigation and 
culture of the essential germ causative of the infectious and 
contagious diseases. The other two members of the commis- 
sion shall be medical men of recognized ability, based upon 
long and ample experience, competent to give expert con- 
sideration to all phases of the symptoms and course of yellow- 
fever in any form wherein the phenomena of the disease may 
present themselves, whether induced in the course of pestilen- 
tial invasion or in purposely devised inoculation. 
Resolved, That this Commission aforesaid shall proceed at 
the earliest possible moment to Rio de Janeiro as the first field 
of its labors. Having completed there its work, it shall pro- 
ceed to Mexico, and, if necessary in the accumulation of testi- 
mony, to Panama, Colon, and Havana. 
Resolved, That the sum of $30,000, or so much thereof as 
may be actually required to pay the necessary and unavoidable 
travelling and other expenses and the salaries of the members 
of the Commission, be appropriated by Congress. 
Resolved, That the sum of $5000 shall be paid as a recom- 
pense to each member of the aforesaid Commission.