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.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    coast of Mexico and Gulf and south Atlantic coasts of North America]; and that in all these districts its has its epidemic years and its years of nearly entire exemption is also well known. Dowler, on Avhose authority Dowell in other respects lays great stress, states that, on the contrary, The slightest notice of yellow fever is nowhere found among ancient writers, altliough they have not failed to record, incidentally or directly, the time, place, and progress of numerous epidemics with more or less particularity, so that these characteristics may now, after the lapse of so many centuries, be ascertained. It is now nearly 3,000 years since the first temple arose in honor of ^sculapius; four or five centuries later, he was worshiped at Rome, where epidemics became both frequent and fatal. Homer opens his great poem by alluding to an epidemic that destroyed dogs, mules, and men: another, 430 years before Christ, most destructive at Athens, was very minutely described by Tliucydides, himself having suffered by it. An epi- demic also fell under the observation of Hippocrates, whose treatment of it was reckoned so successful, that he was presented with a massive ciown of gold and the highest public honors. Five years later, Athens was again visited. Many epidemics jjrevailed at Rome before our era. In 263 and 212 (at the siege of Syracuse), and in 131 before Christ, the Roman and many other nations suffered from pestilential visitations, as mentioned directly or indirectly by ancient authors. Near the commencement of the Christian era, Celsus, and in the next century, Galen, gave the world their learnfed works on medicine. In the sixth century the plague was general; and, in A. D. 565, small-pox was first described in France, as it was in the tenth century by the Arabian physicians, Rhazes and Avicenna. Before the mid- dle of the 13th century, medical schools existed at Montpelier and Damas- cus. The Parisian College of Surgery soon followed. Descriptions of scurvy and plica were soon after recorded. Books on medicine, too, appeared in greater number; and some new diseases were described in the 14th and 15th centuries, such as whooping-cough, the sweating sickness, and St. Vitus' dance, which later was epidemic dn the Rhine. During this lor.g period, so briefly sketched, yellow fever does not appear to have been noticed until the discovery of America by Columbus. Had it prevailed in ancient times, its jirominent features, so very remarkable, at least in its advanced stages, would, doubtless, have been recorded.* It is said to have made its fil'st appearance on this side of the Atlantic in the West Indies, in 1647; but the late Noah Webster has shown that it prevailed among the Indians of New England in 1618, and again in 1746, and at other periods. It is also said to have scourged Mexico many years before the Spanish conquest. It cer- tainly prevailed in Central America in 1596. Epidemics of it have occurred as far north as Quebec, as far south as Montevideo, as far east as Spain, and as far west as Mexico. It is endemic in Brazil, the West Indies, Venezuela, New Grenada, Mexico, the Gulf coast, and along the south Atlantic coast of * The weight of evidence is with Dowler, and yellow fever would seem to be an Amer- ican, and not an African fever.