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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    about forty feet a day. Dr. Stone used to compare its course and mode of travel to a tax-collector—from house to house along a street before it diverges. It is most active in its operations near the surface of the earth, attacking a larger proportion of persons on the ground floor; it is more active at night than in the day-time; it may attack a single block or district in a city, as, for instance, in 1870, New Orleans suffered from yellow fever. It Mas con- fined to a portion of the second district, twelve blocks by four. In 1872 it was in the fourth district. In 1873 it appeared in all the districts in the city, and was epidemic, but disinfectants so modified the disease that it did not become a general epidemic, whilst higher up the river, Shreveport and Memphis passed through the terrors of a fatal epidemic. In 1874, New Orleans again escaped, while Pascagoula and Pensacola suffered. Walls may stop the progress of yellow fever; as, for instance, the inmates of the cala- boose in New Orleans generally escape; even a partition of boards may inter- vene, as reported by Dr. Nott, from Governor's Island, in 1867. Dr. Parkes says that in the West Indies it has re]3eatedly attacked a barrack, while no other place on the island was affected. At Lisbon, Cadiz, and many other j^laces, it has attacked only one side of a street. In the West Indies it has repeatedly commenced in the same part of a barrack. It has been known to attack every house in a neighborhood save one; to attack all the sailors in the berths on one side of a man-of-war before reaching over on the opposite side. Dr. W. A. McCully, of Independence, Mo., a very intelligent physician, who volunteered and was devoted to the work in Memphis in 1878, writes of his ex- perience during that epidemic, and one that prevailed at Key West, Florida, in 1864, while he .was a surgeon of volunteers in the Federal army. It will be seen, from what he says, that notwithstanding a strict quarantine, enforced by an ade- quate military force, there were some seemingly spontaneous cases of fever in 1865. He says: In the winter of 1864 and 1865 stringent sanitary regulations were enforced on the island of Key West and Fort Taylor. In March, 1865, a strict quarantine was ordered by Brig.-Gen. John Newton, which I enforced with the assistance of the army and navy. A number of cases occurred during the sum- mer of that year, but all of a mild type, the mortality being but two per cent. The local conditions were such that the germs could not propagate, and in my opinion to them we must generally ascribe the malignancy of the disease. I left Key West in 1866, and never saw yellow fever again until the recent epi- demic at Memphis, Tenn. The disease there exhibited the same phenomena as at Key West and Havana, except that it was frequently comi:)licated with malarial fever. Patients sometimes would have intermittent fever precede, and at others follow yellow fever. Relapses were more frequent. A failure to treat the miasmatic complications was the cause of considerable mortality, I thought, at Memphis. I made thirty autopsies at Key West, and a number at Memphis, with almost identical results. The same lesions were observed in all, modified by malaria, suppression of urine, or some other complication. The observations made at these places lead me to the following conclusions: 1st. That yellow fever is produced by a specific germ. 2d. That the impression on the individual organization is as specific as