An inaugural essay on the bilious typhus which prevailed in Bancker-Street and its vicinity : in the city of New York, in the summer and autumn of 1820 / by Richard Pennell.

Pennell, Richard, -1861

Date:: 1821

Credit: An inaugural essay on the bilious typhus which prevailed in Bancker-Street and its vicinity : in the city of New York, in the summer and autumn of 1820 / by Richard Pennell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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$ease occurred, yet was the disease almost entirely confined to blacks. While, on the contrary, in yellow fever, blacks have always been considered to be less susceptible of the infection than the whites, insomuch that coloured persons have, for this very reason, been employed in nursing the sick, and in the interment of the dead*. In addi- tion to the testimony of the Commissioners of Health, concerning the insusceptibility of negroes to yellow fever, we will quote the authority of Sir Gilbert Blane, in his work on the Diseases of Seamen. It has been said that it [yellow fever] never attacks either the female sex or blacks. This is, in general, though not absolutely true, for I knew a black woman, who acted as nurse to some men ill of this disease, at the hospital at Barbadoes, who died with every symptom of itf. The committee of the Medical Society, by whom we have been informed, that the blacks were the principal vic- tims to the Bancker-street fever, in summing up their opi- nions on this disease, positively affirm that they believe it to have been the identical yellow fever of tropical climates. We do not hesitate to declare our conviction of the iden- tity ofBancker-street fever', with the malignant fever of au- thors, from Hippocrates to the present day, and the yellow fever of tropical climates, and our own harbours\. Seeing the obvious difficulty of reconciling the character which they impute to this fever, with the description of persons among whom it prevailed, they seem to have imagined that they might make their escape from this dilemma, by asserting that the blacks constituted by far, the greater part of the * Statement of Facts relating to the iate Fever which appeared in Bancker- atreet and its vicinity, by Drs. Hosack, Townsend, and Batley, Commis- sioners of Health. January 22d, 1821, Approved of and published by orde - of the Board of Health, page 8. t Page 4C4—5. \ Page 30—Report of the Medical Society Committee.$