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
Licence: Public Domain Mark
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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![in America, without a much greater degree of heat, than the ordinary fummer temperature of thofe countries. The heat in thofe latitudes rarely exceeds, for a few hours, in a fingle day, 75 or at moft 78 degrees by Farenheit. Bat no epidemic yel- low fever is ever generated, in our climate, with that degree of heat. In general, we never fee cafes of that difeafe in America, until we havehad a period of heat rifing, for a confiderable time, to 85 deg. or higher. In any fcafon of ordinary temperature, the yellow fever, in the Britifh kingdoms, and other parallels of latitude, introduced from abroad by feamen or others from war. mer climates, would immediately fubfide and be extingui/hed, without any human efforts. The cafes of malignant fever in England, which turn the body yellow, and which fometimes oc- cur, as mentioned by Lind, are generated about marflies, in hof- pitals, camps, fhips and prifons. An epidemic yellow fever, like that which prevails in America, was never known in Eng* land, and probably cannot exift in the climate. The quarantine enjoined on vcfTels from the Weft-Indies and United States, is utterly ufelefs in guarding that country fiom this peftilence in the form of an epidemic. It may be faid, in anfwei to thefe remarks, that the yellow fe- ver and plague are effentially the fame difeafe ; the plague has of- ten raged in Great Britain, and therefore the climate may not re- iid the prevalence of the yellow fever. But if the plague has raged in Great Britain, v/hich is admit- ted, it muft have arifen from the unhealthy ftate of the elements, which may exift in any latitude, or from very lingular feafons, aided by moft pofwerful local caufes, as in London before it was burnt. I fay the yellow fever will not fpread in England, in the ordinary ftate of the elements, and the ordinary temperature of thefnmmer. If peftilence ever invades cool northerly countries, it muft always proceed piincipally from diforders in the elements and feafons. The ordinary caufes, in tem])erate or cool cli- mates, have but little influence in generating peftilence. Hence in common feafons, in England, no plague, bilious or inguinal, could be fpread, unlefs in a crouded jail, camp, or dirty, con- fined alley in a city. If the phyficians in England obferv« the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21163212_0218.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
