A brief history of epidemic and pestilential diseases: with the principal phenomena of the physical world, which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated ; in two volumes (Volume 2).

Noah Webster

Date:: 1799

Credit: A brief history of epidemic and pestilential diseases: with the principal phenomena of the physical world, which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated ; in two volumes (Volume 2). 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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$glandular tumors, all poflible means were ufed to prevent iti fpreading, but to no purpofe. The confidence in modern health laws, is like the refpecft which the ancient Egyptians paid to the bird, Ibis, which, they fuppofed, averted the plague by deftroying the flying ferpents that the hot Lybian winds brought into the country. Cicero de Nat. Deor. lib. I. 36. The Egyptians were like all modern nations—unwilling to believe the plague generated at home—they afcribed it to infec- tion brought by flying ferpents, as the moderns afcribe it to old clothes, bales of goods and infefted fliips. They miftook the caufe, adored Ibis, as the moderns do, quarantine, and with the fame ill fuccefs. But we need not ftep oflT 6f our own territories to find evi- dence of the ineflicacy of health lav/s, when oppofed to the op- eration of the laws of nature. No expedient has been left un- tried to ward off the calamity of peftilence, but without any vifible efFeft. The feverity of the afflidion in Philadelphia, in former years> Ikad rendered the magiftracy of the city extremely careful to guard againfl: importation in 1798. The mofl: rigid «]uarantine was exaded—ventilators of the beft conftrudion em- ployed—the veflels were waflied, fumigated, white-walhed with lime, and every pradicable mode of purification adopted. Not a veflel was fuffered to approach the city, without fatisfadory evidence of the healthy ftate of the people, and the falubrity of the vefFel and cargo. See the letter from Hillary Baker, Efq. mayor of the city, to the mayor of Baltimore, dated Auguft 13th, 1798. Alas! all to no purpofe ! The ravages of the difeafe are well known. If, fays the late worthy mayor, the difeafe has eluded the health officers, I fhall defpair of future fuccefs, unlefs the Wefi- Indi» commerce fhall be prohibited in the fummer months, and magazines eftablifhed below for receiving the cargoes. Similar provifions in other ports have been eftabliflied with no better fuccefs. The health laws at New-York, fo far as appears, \Vere as well executed in 1795, 96 and 98, when the fever was epidemic, as in 1794 and 97 when it was not. No vifible good effefts are to be difcoyered in guarding againfl an epidemic j the$