Some account of the last yellow fever epidemic of British Guiana / by Daniel Blair, surgeon general of British Guiana ; edited by John Davy, inspector general of army hospitals, etc.

  • Blair, Daniel.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some account of the last yellow fever epidemic of British Guiana / by Daniel Blair, surgeon general of British Guiana ; edited by John Davy, inspector general of army hospitals, etc. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    several worms, {ascaris lumbricoides) found in the small intestines, but no ulceration or inflammation in any part of the intestinal mucous membrane. The kidneys were healthy; bladder full of clear limpid urine. 14th Maij, 1846. XV. On the Recurrence of Yelloio Fever in George Town, Demerera, in a Letter to His Excellency Governor Barclay, from Dr. Daniel Blair, M.D. Surgeon-General of British Guiana, with a Return showing the Transition from the ordinary Fevers of the Country to the Malignant Disease.* Public Hospital of Demerara and Essequebo. 6th January, 1852. Sir, It is my painful duty to inform your Excellency that yellow fever at present exists in George Town in an epidemic form. Since the beginning of November last I have observed that many cases of what appeared the ordinary fever of the Colony seemed modified and exasperated, as if some new irritant had been added to the endemic malaria. Indeed, as early as the 7th and 24th of October a slight change in the usual manifestation of fever symptoms might have been observed in a few cases. But from the beginning of November the change became marked: unusual flushing of the face, vascularity of the eyes, trifling hemorrhage, supra-orbital headache, and epigastric oppression supervened on a first or second paroxysm of fever, and such cases were intercurrent with normal intermittents. In one or two instances sudden and unexpected death occurred. The evidences of a new virus (new, because unknown for several years) poisoning the atmosphere continued to accumulate, and its specific character has gradually developed itself until it has become too manifest that we are again invaded by a similar epidemic to that of 1837. Although yellow fever has prevailed both at Cayenne and Surinam during the last twelve or eighteen months, there is no circumstance that has come to my knowledge which at all countenances the sup- position that our disease has had its origin in importation. The manner in which the epidemic has commenced with us—at first by * [It is with some hesitation, as Editor, that 1 append tliis document, the disease, the commencement of which it describes, being in fatal progress whilst I write (April 28. 1852), or at least was in progress up to the time of the latest accounts from Demerara : my inducement to insert it, is the distinct manner in which the epidemic is described as developing itself.—En.]