With all the care it continued to increase, and has not yet
been controlled.
On such occasions the scientists are always very busy. While some of the
doctors are trying to cure the disease, others are busy preventing the
sick persons from carrying the contagion to other places, and others
again are occupied in trying to find the cause of the epidemic, and how
to prevent it in future.
One of the scientists who have been working to prevent the disease has
discovered the microbe which causes yellow fever, and claims that an
epidemic can in future be prevented by inoculating people with it in the
same way that they are now vaccinated for small-pox.
Small-pox was at one time a scourge throughout the world, and fearful
outbreaks of this plague would occur wherever numbers of people were
gathered together.
About the year 1718 an English lady travelling in Turkey noticed that
inoculation was practised in that country with the greatest success, and
that epidemics were greatly prevented thereby.
This lady, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, introduced the practice into
England.
The idea was to introduce into the blood the germs of the dreaded
disease, practically giving the patient a slight attack of small-pox,
which made him proof against another attack.
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