Reflections on yellow fever periods, or, a particular investigation of the long contested question, whether the yellow fever can originate amongst us, or, is always imported from abroad / by Lyman Spalding, M.D. ; read before the New-York County Medical Society, 13th Sept. 1819.

  • Lyman Spalding
Date:
1819
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Credit: Reflections on yellow fever periods, or, a particular investigation of the long contested question, whether the yellow fever can originate amongst us, or, is always imported from abroad / by Lyman Spalding, M.D. ; read before the New-York County Medical Society, 13th Sept. 1819. 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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    it could be traced to no foreign source ;* moreover, it oc- * The first appearance of the disease in Boston, was on the 25th of August, 1796, in a family at the southeasterly part of the town, near a considerable extent of flats, which are daily exposed, for some hours, to the action of the sun.'* No mention is made of importation, either by Dr. Warren, or by Dr. Brown, the latter of whom has given a more particular account of its origin and progress in his Inaugural Dissertation. Public opinion did not even accuse any vessel of having imported it. In a subse- quent publication,! Doctor Warren says, As to importation in the above recited cases, there was not the shadow of a reason to suspect the possibility of it. About 140 persons died of yellow fever in Boston in 1798. No persons could produce any evidence of importation of this .disease.t Doctor Rush and others, in their report to the Governor of Pennsylvania, of the origin of the yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1798, say, it arose from putrid exhalations from the gutters, streets, ponds, and marshy grounds in the neighbourhood of the city. Because several cases appeared before the arrival of the suspected vessel. They also cite many other cases of domestic origin. Med- Repos. Ilex. I. vol. I. p. 393. It has never been alledged by any one, that the malignant fever of last season [1803] was introduced inloThiladelphia from the West Indies. Caldwell's Account of Yellow Fever, Med. Repos. Hex. II. vol. I. p. 150. Doctor Rosset, in his account of the yellow fever in Wilming- ton, N. C. in 1796, says, I have, however, no doubt in my own mind of its having originated among us—from our not being able to trace it to any other source. Med. Repos. Hex. I. vol. II. p. 154. The Rev. Doctor Channing, in his account of the yellow fever in New London, Connecticut, in 1798, says, as we have not * Professor Warren's Letter to E. Pearson. Med. Repos. Hex. I. vol I. p. 132. t Warren on Mercurial Practice, p. 97. J Warren on Mercurial Practice, p. 114, 115.
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