Tableaux of New Orleans / by Bennet Dowler.

  • Bennet Dowler
Date:
[1853?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tableaux of New Orleans / by Bennet Dowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    tradicteil, and which placed them in the situation of those victimized frogs which, being stoned by certain boys, protested against the same, alleging that the pelting of frogs was very amusing to the boys, but death to the frogs, and, consequently, to their business. On the 23d of January, 1S2.5, a large public meeting took place, in which it was moved and carried that the late epidemic hud listed the total inefficiency of the quarantine laics and regu- lations ; we consider them not only useless, but in the highest degree oppressive and injurious to the commerce of this city; and that application ought to be made to the Legislature for the purpose of having them annulled. A memorial was addressed to the Legislature, accordingly, for that purpose. The year 1823 completed its orbit without an epidemic. The contagionists, in the Legisla- ture and in the city, reigned. In January, 1824, the Governor congratulated the Legislature on the exemption of the city from contagious diseases. But in November of the same year he says, New Orleans has been again subjected to the dreadful scourge. lie seems to incline to the doctrine of its domestic origin, and suggests the propriety of bringing the business sea- son to a close by midsummer, and recommends a general flight to the unacclimated; adding, concerning yellow fever: Amidst the gloom which its fate inspires, may we not be permitted to indulge the cheering hope that the city is not doomed to suffer always V Some writer defines resignation by the word despair ;—destiny and despair are poor comforters. The contagionists now began to waver. The committees in both Houses of the Legislature disagreed on quarantine, and were discharged from the consideration of the same on the 30th of November. To disunion, a revolution in opinion succeeded. In less than three months after- wards, an act was passed (February 19, 1825) repealing the quarantine laws of 1821, directing the sale of the grounds belonging to the establishment, and empowering the Governor and the city authorities to establish a sort of quasi quarantine, at their discretion, but refused them the power to stop any vessel unless the resident physician shall determine that the vessel is unfit to enter into port. xEsculapius was omnipotent. lie held the balance of power. He could, in effect, veto or nullify the acts declaratory of an actual quarantine. His mere theoretical opinion bound com- merce in chains, upon rivers, gulfs, and seas. It furled the sail. It put out the steam. Now, when a theory is intrinsically visionary or doubtful, indigestion, bad sleep, the last medical romance on contagion, an old prejudice, or a new whim, may turn the scale in the mind of the *' Resident Physician. The terrible decree goes forth, and perish commerce rather than sacri- fice an opinion made up and expressed to all the world ! As quarantinists seem to be astrological]}', or at least mystically inclined—as their love of the number forty testifies—it might not be improper to inform them, that as soon as all qua- rantine was removed from New Orleans the yellow fever began to diminish. For eight years, the mortality never, in any season, equalled that which occurred under the strict quarantine of 1822. During this latter year, nearly half as many died as in the long period intervening be- tween the abolition of the quarantine and the invasion of the epidemic cholera—a period of eight jears. Had this decrease taken place under a quarantine regime, a thousand glittering swords of logic would have leaped forth in its defence: Salus jyopidi suprema est lex. From 1837 to 1843, five epidemics swept, tornado-like, through the streets of New Orleans. A triennial, or rather a triune epidemic, commenced in 1841—an account of which would fill a volume, and which is here alluded to solely for the purpose of denying that the epidemic was introduced by the ship Talma, and for the purpose of remarking that the statements concerning the same gave a new impetus to contagion. Early in the year 1844, the late Professor Carpenter (one of the brightest ornaments of the University, and the State of Louisiana) published an Essay to disprove the domestic origin, and to demonstrate the transmissibility of yellow fever. Dr. Carpenter's contributions to the periodicals of the day were indicative of a logical mind and profound research, with the single exception of this paper, the historical data of which are essentially defective. But the influence of this essay was great upon the legislature. With the suddenness almost of a thunderclap on the 1st of March, 1844, the committee of the House of Representatives brought in a report in /avor of establishing quarantine, for the following reasons: