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.

    51/462
    'Autocrat,' which, ^vith bedding just waslied, had been exposed to the intense cold f )!• fifty-one hour^. She arrived in this city at noon, December 21, and 'was im- mediately conveyed to Mr. Carey's residence. No. 199 Louisiana Avenue. The house had been thoroughly cleaned in the spring, freshly kalsomined and frescoed, and moreover had not had a case of fever in it during the summer. On the 26th, Dr. Joseph Scott was summoned. He found the child suffering from severe supra-orbital, temporal, and e]iigastric pains; surface of liody cool and slightly perspiring; pulse, 120; temperature (lietween teeth and check), 104f°. Temperature of the room, 41°. He visited her five times during the next twenty-four hours, pursuing the usual exjicctant treatment. Shortly after the last of these visits he was hastil}' resummoned, and found that black vomit had supervened. Dr. Josej^h Jones examined the discharge and pronounced it to be from true yellow fever. Dr. Scott speedily checked the vomit. The fever lasted eighty-one hours, ■with thermal and sphygmic lines horizontal; then the pulse and temperature gradually declined to noimal. On the second and third days albumen was found, and the sclerotics were imbued with the usual tint. In fine, every pathognomonic symptom of yellow fever was strongly marked, so much so that this might be regarded as a tyjiical case. The theory that yellow-fever poison is destroyed by a temperature of 32° Fahren- heit is strongly controverted in the fact that the house had been exposed to even greater cold. The view that a temperature of at least 60° is required for its development finds contradiction in that the temperature of the room where the child sickened was only 41°. Surely it can not be urged that the period of incubation extended from May to December; and on the other hand, what might have been the fomites conveying the germ, M'hen it is an assured fact that there had been no fever in the house during the summer, and that neither had the child been outside the house nor had any one visited it. In fact, all accepted etiological and semeiological princijiles in yellow fever science seem to have been utterly set at defiance in this truly remarkable case. It surely can not be claimed that this was a case of bilious remittent fever, or of malarial type, wdien every symptom was in perfect accordance with the most marked type of yellow fever in its monoparoxysmal form. Here avc have strong confirmation of the germ theory, and the alleged power of the seeds to hibernate; evidence adverse to the theory that cold will kill the poison, or that a test of 60° is necessary to develoj) it; and fiicts strongly pointing to the spontaneous rejiroduction of the disease at all times, even in cleanly and healthy localities. So clear and easily attainable are the circumstances surrounding it, that it is eminently worthy of rigid investigation and of being placed upon the records of science.