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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    fever appeared among us. Wlieii writers say it requires a heat of 90° or upward to produce the poison, there must be other conditions in the atmos- phere to iDriiig it about, or to cause tliis matter to hatch and nndtiply. Does it not require a peculiar state and exposure to the atmosphere to cause Aveevil to breed in a grain of corn or in a barrel of flour? Some years these are more in number than usual. If it is in the air or atmosphere, has it a cen- ter to hold itself? can not the strong gulf winds that we have blow it away? We know they have uo influence oyer it whateyer. Tiie present epidemic has passed away from us without a frost, yet we witness no peculiar change in the season from any other It has appeared for several years in succession after hard frosts and winters; it has followed or continued its deadly march after very, mild winters; hence, we haye no possible means of telling what portion of the South will be exempt. It comes without giv- ing warning, and we only know it is among us by seyeral cases being taken down within a week, and by its unmistakal)le marks on the body after death, and by black yomit. Dr. J. M. Reuss, accounting for the e])idemic of In- dianola, Texas, in 18C7, says the feyer was introduced by a pair of second- hand blankets,* sold by some 2:)ersons connected with a small craft which had ari'iyed from Vera Cruz, where it was raging a few days before the 20th of June. Two young men, avIio had only examined these blankets, vere at- tacked, and one of them died of black vomit. A negro woman, who nursed one of them, also died of well-maiked yellow fever. A lad}^ from New Orleans, where the fever also raged, vas taken sick at the hotel, and is supposed to haye been another medium for its spread. Besides, as was the case in ]\Iem- phis in 1873 and 1878, feyer of a continued and dangerous form j^reyailed, which confused the physicians. Dr. Reuss says he himself had several cases of feyer of a more malignant type than the common climatic feyers of that region. The first death occurred on the 24th of June, and in less than a Aveek the whole business part of the town was struck down as by lightning, there being by that time between 125 and 150 cases, out of a population of 1,000. It reached its acme in two weeks, and lingered in the suburbs for oyer a month. The poison was most fatal at night, and generally took hold of nurses and doctors when it reached their places of residence. Dr. S. W. Welsh, of Galyeston, traces the origin of the epidemic in that city in 1867 to a young German, who arrlyed from Indianola on the 28th, and to a per- Dr. Jacob S. West, of Texas, cites two cases where the yellow fever was introduced by sacks of cofiec. ISoth occurred in 18(57. At Liberty, Texas, a sack of coffee landed two miles from the town, from the steamboat Ruthven, wliich, coming from Galveston, ■was refused permission to land at the town. This sack of cotTee was taken to Liberty on a drav, through an atmosphere, up to that time, perfectly healthy; but all who shared the coffee were taken with yellow fever, which spread with disastrous effects. The second case was that of a sack of coffee hauled fifteen miles iu an open wagon, from Corpus Christi, where the fever prevailed, to a point near Meansville, where it was divided among the pui-chasers. Not one of these escaped ; all of them were seized with yellow fever, and many of them died. But those who did not so share were, singularly enough, exempt. The conditions necessary to its .spread were not there.