The yellow fever epidemic of 1878 in Memphis, Tenn. : embracing a complete list of the dead, the names of the doctors and nurses employed, names of all who contributed money or means, and the names and history of the Howards, together with other data, and lists of the dead elsewhere / by J.M. Keating.

  • Keating, John McLeod, 1830-1906.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The yellow fever epidemic of 1878 in Memphis, Tenn. : embracing a complete list of the dead, the names of the doctors and nurses employed, names of all who contributed money or means, and the names and history of the Howards, together with other data, and lists of the dead elsewhere / by J.M. Keating. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the United States, as fur ncrth as Chiirle.ston. It is uncommon in elevated rei^ions, but deaths have occurred from it at New Castle, Jamaica, at tlie height of 4,000 feet; and, if the statement be true that ancient IMexico was vi.<ited by it, then it lias been epidemic at a lieight of between 7,000 and 8,000 feet above the level of the sea. Dowell says, That along the sea coasts and in the islands of the tropics it has never occurred above 3,000 feet, while under the equator it has occurred at 4,000 feet. Since 16G8 it has many times prevailed epidemically in the New England, the Middle, the Western, and the Southern States of the Union, at a fearful saci-ifice of life and cost of money. Dowell, writing in the first part of 1878, before the dreadful visitation of that year, which cost the country more than 25,000 lives and §200,000,000, says, That yellow fever had [up to 1877] visited 228 cities and towns and 28 States of the Union, appearing 741 times, and causing 65,311 deaths [of which we have record, and as many more, per- haps, of which we have not]. Dr. Bell, of Louisville, declares it an indisputa- ble truth that, beyond 45° north latitude and 23° south latitude, the disease is but rarely or never felt, and it is rigidly confined between 20° east longi- tude and 30' north. In the West India Islands, on the west coast of Africa, and the continent of America the ravages of yellow fever are most fre- quently felt. The conspicuous zones for it are Barbadoes on the east, Tampico on the west, Rio Janeiro on the south, and Charleston on the north. Within this area the disease is perpetually present at some point. Dowell says, *' That it can not live in a temperature above 212° nor below 32° Fahrenheit, or 100° centegrade; consequently, no patient will take the disease where the temperature is below freezing [see contradiction a few lines below], and you may steam a ship to boiling, and kill out all contagion, and make it clean and liealthy, by raising the heat to 212° [or, as some others insist, by freezing it by the new refrigerating process of Gamgee] ; that he has knoAvn non-inter- course to prevent it; but, after a slight frost or two, the men were 'permitted to come to town, and there occurred several cases, ami one death, in 1865, January 5th [and yet he says no patient will take the disease at a temperature below freez- ing point]; and that the cause is increased by meteorological changes of months' duration; and this is the cause of the belief of some that it comes in the air. It develops in from two to nine days, but cases have been known where patients have had it in them 23 days. The true cause is an animal- culje, so small that we have been unable yet to develop it, though there are some efforts being made in that direction, which foreshadow success. But they have not yet made their appearance. Dr. Bennett Dowler, an authority who shares the esteeni of all students of tiie subject with Stone, Flaget, Bell, and many others, declares positively that it has originated spontane- ously in more than one instance in the United States; and, so originating, has raged epidemically. The Commission appointed by the Board of Health of New Orleans in 1853, to inquire into the causes of the epidemic of that year, declared positively that it originated there, and was aggravated to a fearful inten.sity by the filthy condition of the city. The medical experts recently appointed by Congress, deny the position of Dowler, of the New