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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    that early in the summer of 1800, tlie tlien Intendant of Cuba, El Sr. Don Pablo Valieute, chartered the sliip Dolphin to take himself, family, and suite to Simin, touched at Charleston, and, having anchored in the Bay of Cadiz, he went ashore with his party two days after, on the 8th of July. A month later the yellow fever appeared in Cadiz; whereupon Valiente was arrested upon a criminal charge, for having imported yellow fever contagion fi-om Havana and Charleston. The former he left in May, the latter he touched at on June 2d, and left eight days after. At neither place was there any yellow fever. No yellow fever appeared on boai-d of the Dolphin during the voyage, though three of the sailors had died. The Intendant, after eleven months' imprisonment, was acquitted at Seville, and was afterwards promoted by the government, probably as a compensation for his wrongs. Another case is that of the vis- itation in Philadelphia, in 1853, which was attributed to the bark Mandaiin, which had arrived from Cienfuego. An investigation by Dr. W. Jewell, of the College of Physicians, resulted in the declaration that— 1st, No disease of a malignant type prevailed in the city previous to the arrival of the Mandmin; 2d, That none of the seamen of the Mandarin sickened ; 3d, That none of the laborei-s employed in unloading the Mandarin had taken the disease; . . . . 6th, That in no case has the disease been communicated to any person visiting or engaged in attendance upon the sick; and, 7th, That not a single instance can be met with having its origin to the south of where the 3Iandarin lay last. Dr. Heustis—in his work on Epidemic Fevers, published at Cahawba, Alabama, in 1825—in his account of the epidemic in Pensacola, in 1822, oifers additional testimony in the same direction. He says: It was pretended by the advo- cates of imported contagion that the fever was brought in a vessel which arrived from New Orleans about the beginning of August. The captain of this vessel was among the first that sickened and died of the malignant fever, and this after his arrival in Pensacola The opinion of one of the most respectable physicians in Pensacola was, that the disease originated entirely from local causes. Such, also, was the conviction of the Board of Health. Do well, on page 19 of his Yellow Fever, although favoring quarantine, says: Yellow fever occasionally leaves its habitual, assumes a migratory chai-acter, traveling over great extents of country, not infrequently breaking through the most rigid quar- antine. But in these migrations it seems to have a prescribed course, along which it pays no respect to any impediments placed in its way; but places in its line of travel [as in 1878] are often protected by non-intercourse, and hence the importance of quarantine. Quoting from such high authorities as Doctors Warren Stone, J. C. Nott, Hunt, Jones, Fenner, and Bennett Dowler, Dr. Dowell continues: These great migrating epidemics revolve in a wave, hurl- ing their terrible influence in a great and sometimes very extended area, often continuing their march during successive years—as the one which commenced in Rio Janeiro, in 1850, and culminated its devasta,ting couise at Norfolk, in 1856, putting to flight all theories about had origin and the protections of sanitary cordons or quarantine restrictions. Illustrating the irresistible force with which these great yellow fever epidemics swcej) over the country, the following is copied froju Dr. Bennett Dowler, perhaps the firet among mcd-