Some account of the last yellow fever epidemic of British Guiana / by Daniel Blair ; edited by John Davy.

Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some account of the last yellow fever epidemic of British Guiana / by Daniel Blair ; edited by John Davy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    CHAP. II. PROGRESS AND HABITS OF THE EPIDEMIC. The epidemic of 1837, which thus first appeared in Kegent Street and Water Street, the centre of which space is Robb's Stelling, soon spread itself along the length of the city. Water Street, or its immediate vicinity, was always the portion chiefly affected, although a few straggling cases were to be met with in the back parts of the town, and one case (that of the late Mrs. D.) even as far back as at the manager's house of Planta- tion Vlissingen. After the appearance of the disease in the city it was noticed in the mercantile shipping, as will be illustrated by reference to the table of mortality among the sailors. Cases then made their appearance in the Essequibo coasts and islands, and in New Amsterdam, Berbice. The troops suffered most in 1839, but what retarding circumstance (perhaps that of unsuitable subjects) acted in their case, I have no means of ascertaining. * * The manner in which the troops escaped at times and at times suffered from yellow fever in British Guiana, and in some of the other stations of the Windward and Leeward Island Command, between 1837 and 1841, is in- structive and worthy of note. The following particulars are from the In- spector General's Reports, — the officer in charge of the medical department in the West Indies: — In the quarter ending on the 30th of June, 1837, [when yellow fever prevailed, as described by the author in Georgetown, Demerara,] the troops there and at the outposts were exceedingly healthy. In July the disease began to appear amongst the officers of the garrison and their families; and, by the end of August, scarcely one had escaped an attack. Five officers died: the women and children suffered in proportion. About the end of August the fever began to appear amongst the non-commissioned officers and privates: out of 32 attacked, 15 died. Intermittent fever was at the same time very prevalent: 1,435 cases came under treatment. In St. Vincent, in 1837, the troops are reported to have been healthy, although the coloured and black population suffered much from ' fever of the typhoid type.' The disease was suddenly arrested on the setting in of the rainy season with unusual violence. In Trinidad, early in May, 1838, fever occurred among the troops at St. James and St. Joseph's: 15 died out of 109 treated : a draft of young Irishmen, just then arrived, suffered most. The mortality amongst the inhabitants of Port of Spain was even, proportionally, greater than amongst the military. In Dominica, this year, during the quarter ending the 30th of June, out