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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    G3 CHAP. VIII. No epizootic disease prevailed during the period of the epidemic, except on its decline in 1843, when some fatal malady destroyed many cattle in the Mahaicony and Berbice districts. This epizoon, however, showed no connexion with the yellow fever. Several sporadic cases of disease, and speedy death, in feathered stock imported from the United States and England, — the chief symptoms drooping of the wings and the exudation of black fluid from the beaks before death,—have been told to me by intelli- gent nonprofessional persons. The only case, apparently, of yellow fever among the lower animals that came under my observation, was in a young dog.* This dog was the last of a litter that were whelped, and lay on the stelling of Messrs. Johnston, Brothers, and Co.; all the rest had died with the same train of symptoms, according to the information which I received from the intelligent and much lamented partner of the firm, the late Mr. Allen. They had died between the fifth and seventh days of their illness. The symptoms were similar to those in man,—viz. fever for two or three days, then a subsidence of it, irritable stomach, loathing of food, yellowness of eyes, point of nose, groins, and belly, and, finally, death. I saw the last one the day before its death. The post-mortem examination bore out the symptomatology. Mr. Allen informed me that the same bitch had littered pre- viously on the same part of the stelling, and all the puppies, but one, died of the same symptoms. He also declared that black vomit (and he had frequently seen it in the human sub- ject) was ejected from the young dogs that had previously died: but there was none in the stomach of the one I inspected. The object of narrating this case, and the value of it, is to show to the pathological experimentalist that in the young dog he has a subject apparently susceptible of the yellow fever malaria. * [In the West Indies generally, I have not been able to learn that any domestic animals have been attacked during the prevalence of yellow fever : no instance of the kind is recorded in the Inspector's Office in Barbados.]'