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.

    74/290 (page 52)
    What the yellow fever poison may be has never been demon- strated. Whatever it be, it is probable that in all localities Avithin the yellow fever zone it is the same thing. The aux- iliaries of it, however, may be different, as well as the vehicle of communication, and perhaps it may be generated in a variety of soils. Extreme heat and drought, however, do not seem to influence its development here.* The year 1833, during which the very beds of the navigable canals were deeply cracked fi-om drought, was not followed or accompanied by an invasion, and the epidemic was long on the decline before the long dry season of 1845 and 1846. The i-eturn of our epidemic approximates to the metonic cycle. Three great staples in succession have been cultivated in this Colony, — cotton, coffee, and sugar: an epidemic has happened here while each flourished. Putrid coffee water has a most offensive and nauseating odour. Yet coffee estates were in general healthy, and Dr. Rush's opinion could find no followers here. The suspicions of Dr. Dunkin in his report to Dr. Chisholm during a period of the first epidemic, viz. the defective di'alnage here, is still favourably entertained; it is the popular opinion. The epidemic of 1819 was imputed to the decom- position of a cargo of damaged salt fish which had been thrown into the deep trench then existing in the rear of America Street, at the store of a Mr. Kernon. The river obstruction * [The same remark applies to the West Indies generally ; in the majority of instances the most severe attacks of the disease have occurred in the cool season, and not unfreqiiently when the weather has been peculiarly agreeable as regards sensation, and it might be supposed, d priori, favourable to health. From the records in the Inspector's office in Barbados, in uninterrupted series for forty years, it would ajjpear, that the disease, in different situations and years, has seemingly been unconnected with any known meteorological states of atmosphere, or indeed with any known circumstance affecting health, i.e., in relation to the exciting cause. Though it has been of most frequent occurrence in the cool season, it has also occurred during the season of greatest heat, and it has persisted occasionally through the rainy season, and through the dry. In Demerara, in 1825, a drought so severe prevailed, —there bad scarcely been a shower for ten months,—that ditch water was brought in casks from a distance of fourteen miles; rum was readily exchanged for water. The mortality was great amongst the cattle from mere want of water, yet the troops and (he inhabitants were healthy. Many instances might be given of absence of fever in connexion with rainy seasons. It h;is been asserted, that in Barbados, the weather which is most favourable to the crops (when a large proportion of rain falls,) is also most fiivourable to health ; a proposition, it may be, commonly true, and yet not without exceptions.]—Eu.