Volume 1
Yellow fever : considered in its historical, pathological, etiological, and therapeutical relations. Including a sketch of the disease as it has occurred in Philadelphia from 1699 to 1854, with an examination of the connections between it and the fevers known under the same name in other parts of temperate, as well as in tropical, regions / By R. La Roche.
- René La Roche
- Date:
- 1855
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Yellow fever : considered in its historical, pathological, etiological, and therapeutical relations. Including a sketch of the disease as it has occurred in Philadelphia from 1699 to 1854, with an examination of the connections between it and the fevers known under the same name in other parts of temperate, as well as in tropical, regions / By R. La Roche. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
87/680 page 31
![cerned, which have usually been found associated with the production and dissemination of the form of disease which constitutes the subject of our present inquiries, no one among us will refuse to bear witness. It is much to be able to say, in connection with that fact, that the city plot has been properly graded, drained, and paved; that creeks have been culverted; 1 that pools, ponds, swamps—formerly the source of much insalubrity— ? have been filled in, and their surfaces variously improved; that a full i supply of pure and wholesome water has been obtained; and that the dock I has been filled in. It is much, too, to notice that the hygienic condition I of the river side has been highly ameliorated; that the wharves have been I paved and rendered otherwise less objectionable; that Delaware Avenue has I been straightened, and, together with Water and the adjoining streets, [ has been greatly improved; and that* better police regulations have been i introduced. All this has been subject of observation among us, and no one [ has failed to perceive that, by these various means, and the gradual spread > of improvement, malarial fevers have been chased beyond the limits of the city I north, south, and west, and the sources of noxious effluvia, on the east front, \ greatly lessened. In a word, while the city generally has been, in several I respects, cleared of many of the conditions of locality more or less connected f with the causation of fevers of telluric or malarial origin, or which add force 1 to epidemic and other maladies, those parts of it which exhibit the peculiar I local features usually and everywhere recognized as connected with the origin > of yellow fever, and where that disease, at each of its epidemic visitations, [ has broken out and spread, have been advantageously modified. But, while admitting all this, no one acquainted with the condition of the > city, or who has perused the preceding statements, will refuse to confess that I much yet remains to be done ere Philadelphia can justly deserve the reputa- ] tion for unsurpassed cleanliness and neatness in all its parts, so often claimed i in its behalf; that the facilities of ablution, which the abundant supply of 1 water furnishes, are much more neglected than is conducive to public comfort 5 and health; and that so far as concerns the obscurer parts of the city, alleys, t lanes, courts, and especially the wharves, docks, the outlets of sewers, &c., i much remains to be done by the guardians of public health.^ Morbid in- I fluences which, in other cities or regions, subject the residents and visitors f to febrile diseases, and especially to that form of them which constitutes the I main object of our inquiries, exist in our midst, and existed to a greater > extent at an earlier period of our history. Nor could it be otherwise; for the > effect is the result of circumstances over which we have little or no control, i and which could not be removed but at an expense which no city govern- I ment would be willing to incur, and at sacrifices to which it would be vain f to expect any community to submit. • They depend on the natural, uneven, I and in'egular condition of the city plot; on the vicinage of the river side; the [ peculiar quality, natural and artificial, of the soil, in many parts at least of * See Report of Joint Special Committees of Select and Common Councils; Report I on Public Hygiene in Trans, of Am. Med. Assoc, for 1849.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24990917_0001_0087.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
