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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    poison has never been chonically or nilcrosco])ical]y (lenionstratecl, nor in any way made evident to the liiunan sense, tliey deem it safe to assume tliat it is material and particuhir, is endowed with ordinary properties, and is subject to the ordinary hnvs of material substances. They also hold that it is orp-anic — is endowed with the vital ])roj)erties of growth and reproduction; tliat it is not Tiialarial; but the concurrence of local conditions favorable to the evolution of it seems to be necessary to the evolution of yellow fever epidemics. Atmosj)heric air, they admit, is the usual me(jium through ^vhich the infection is received into the human system; it is not carried by atmospheric currents, they say, nor by any modes or vehicles of conveyance other than those coiniected witli human traffic and travel. The white race is most susceptible to it, and all colors inter- mediary between that and the negro less and less in degree as the}' approach the African, who suffers least of all from it. The period of incubation, tiiey hold, varies from two to five days—second attacks are of rare occurrence — and it can be destroyed by extreme heat and cold and by chemical disinfectants where they can be concentrated. Dr. L. S. Tracey, in the Popular Sclcitre Montldy, a publication of the highest scientific character, regards the germ and develo])ment theory with favor. He says: Yellow fever occujiies a singular positi(m between the contagious and non-coutagious diseases. The poison is not, like that of small-pox, directly communicable from a sick person to a well one; but, although the emanations of the sick are connected with the spread of the disease, they seem to require an appropriate nidus in which to germinate and develop. This nidus must be warm and moist, and there the germs, what- ever they are, lie and grow or, in some way, develop luitil they are able to mi- grate. The germs are poi'table, and may be conveyed in l^aggage or merchan- dise {fom'de-i) for hundreds or thousands of miles. If not so conveyed, its progi'ess is very slow. In 1822, in New York, when it gained a foothold in Rector Street, it appeared to travel aljout 40 feet a day until killed l)y tlie frost. It often leaves a house or a block intact, going around it and attacking those be- yond, with no assignable reason. A thin board partition seems to have stopped it on Governor's Island in 1856, and an instance is related where it attacked the sailors in all the berths of one side of a shij:) before crossing to the other. Such apparent vagaries are, in the present state of our knoAvledge, inexplica- ble. * Dr. William Schmoele, of Philadelphia, in an essay on the cause, the fusion, localization, prevention, and cure of cholera and yellow fever, holds to the same theory, but lays particular stress on propagation by the patient. He says: The parasites causing the j^ellow fever, although also of exclusively tropical origin, appear somewhat capable to be reproduced, during the heat of summer, wherever the thermometer of Fahrenheit ranges above 86 degrees, in more northern latitudes, outside of the human alimentary tube, especially if impoi'ted by patients, and deposited with their excrements, in warm, damp, and filthy localities, presenting all the additional conditions of development of minute vermin. Their chief diffusion, however, in northern climes, is efiected by * They have always been characteristic of it. All the medical and ne'W!3paper records treat of them.