Report on quarantine on the Southern and Gulf coasts of the United States / by Harvey E. Brown.
- Brown, Harvey Ellicott, 1840-1889.
- Date:
- 1873
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report on quarantine on the Southern and Gulf coasts of the United States / by Harvey E. Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![When Florida was ceded to the United States in 1821, large numbers of adventurers flocked from all parts of the country to seek their for- tunes in the new acquisition. Most of them came without the means of rendering themselves comfortable in their new home, and on arrival at Saint Augustine and Pensacola, they took possession of the houses left vacant by the Spaniards, where they lived crowded together in unclean, badly-ventilated rooms. Their habits were of the most reckless char- acter, passing the days in drinking, gambling, and cock-fighting; they would not even take the time necessary for the decent cleansing of their persons and their houses. Consequently, when the yellow fever was introduced in 1821 into Saint Augustine, and in 1822 into Pensacola, it found the very food most ap- propriate for its rapid development, and most fatal epidemics followed. Unquestionably, an important factor in the wide spread of the great epidemics in 1867, was the immense numbers of discharged soldiers of the Army who had remained at the South after being mustered out of service. It was estimated that there were not less than fifty thousand unacclimated persons in New Orleans alone, most of whom belonged to the class just mentioned. Besides this, the negroes at the close of the war flocked into all the large cities in vast numbers, and although, in genera], not susceptible to the poison of the fever, yet, by overcrowding, the cities, and that in the filthiest and most unhealthy localities, they exercised a great influence on the spread of the epidemic which followed. At least one outbreak in Charleston owed its fatality .to the arrival of an unusually large number of immigrants a short time before; and just previous to the great visitation of fever to Buenos Ayres, there had been an extensive immigration from Europe, and the' town was crowded with unacclimated foreigners. At Galveston, in 1839, the fever, after raging with great ’ severity for six weeks, suddenly ceased, not because the infection was dead, but because there was no more material upon which it could feed. Every unacclimated person had either run away from town or had suffered an attack. This was proved by the fact that as soon as the refugees began to return the disease broke out again among the newly arrived, and there were a number of deaths. Doubt- less, too, the very erratic course often taken by the disease in the prog- ress of an epidemic may be accounted for in this manner; the leaving of certain houses, streets, and districts comparatively unscathed, and its prevalence, with great mortality, in a neighboring locality; the sudden cessation of the epidemic in one district, and its equally sudden devel- opment in another; or the selection of certain victims in the wards of a hospital into which the disease is brought, leaving others unharmed. 2. The meteorological conditions determining the origin or progress of an epidemic are not yet satisfactorily determined, yet enough is known to render it certain that they exercise a great influence. We never find yellow fever prevailing in the winter season in any part of the United States, nor, indeed, very often before June. We always '*nd that on the appearance of frost, or the reduction of the thermometer to 32° Fahrenheit, the epidemic ceases. Hence* we may put it down as a pos- itive law that heat is one of the essential elements in its development; and a reference to the preceding sketch of the epidemics in this country will show that the severity of the epidemic has been often in direct pro- portion to the heat of the season. To this we may add the moisture in the atmosphere. Heavy rains in May, June, and July, have almost al- ways preceded the great epidemics. But, even apart from these rains, the position of most of the southern cities is such, surrounded by swamps and intersected by bayous, that there is an immense evapora-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22366805_0119.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
