Letters on the yellow fever of 1822 / [Grant Thorburn].

  • Grant Thorburn
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters on the yellow fever of 1822 / [Grant Thorburn]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    after my neighbours removed; and had not the cats in nearly equal numbers quickly followed, I could hardly have stood my ground. But these useful cats, like some of our good democrats, who gene¬ rously serve the public for 10 or 12 dollars per day,) compelled by hunger, and no doubt, in gratitude for what food and shelter 1 gave them, so completely cleared the premises, that I have not seen a rat since the 10th of September last. Let me here remind the public, should they again leave their homes, not to forget these poor animals, and suffer them to die by hundreds in the street with hunger. A wise king once said, “ a merciful man is merciful to his neighbour’s beast.” What are we to think of them who had no mercy on their own beasts ? And here, if I could command words, I ought to record the philanthropy of two Long Island milk-men, and a generous heart¬ ed Irishman, who, for several weeks, left at my doors each a quart of milk for the good of the starving cats; also, of a very big coloured woman, residing at the corner of John and Cliff streets, who might be seen every morning in the street before her door, dividing the of¬ fals, which she had collected from the market, among 40 or 50 cats. On the 7th September, having sent the last of my family to the country, and considering it my duty to remain, I made my arrange¬ ments for life or death, just as Providence might order. I engaged a nurse to live in my house, and after several fruitless attempts, a re¬ spectable physician undertook to attend me, if wanted. I rose at my usual hour every morning, wrought as usual all day, and went to bed at 10, my regular hour for many years past ; and by way of preventive, as has always been my custom whenever the fever prevailed, put on my winter clothes, and before I left my room in the morning, took half a glass of Rue water, which is made by put¬ ting 2 oz. of green rue in a porter bottle, and adding one pint of clear-rain water, and one pint of Holland gin. From the most particular observations 1 have been able to make, 1 am satisfied in my own mind, that we would have no yellow fever in New-York, in a public sense ; and but few cases in a private sense, without a first exciting cause. I believe the air of the city was in a state to receive infection, but the flame would not have burst out, except some foul vessel, like the match applied to the powder, first commenced the blaze. I found this opinion on the fact, that the fever has always commenced its march from the neigh¬ bourhood of our wharves : and for several weeks previous to the late