The climate of the United States and its endemic influences. Based chiefly on the records of the Medical Department and Adjutant General's Office, United States Army / By Samuel Forry.
- Samuel Forry
- Date:
- 1842
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The climate of the United States and its endemic influences. Based chiefly on the records of the Medical Department and Adjutant General's Office, United States Army / By Samuel Forry. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![mediately used; and yet no bad consequences have followed. At Warsaw, Dr. Foy inhaled the breath, tasted the dejections, and ino- culated himself with the blood of patients, without contracting the disease. ‘There remains, however, another fact which seems the experimentum crucis, viz., that thousands of persons left infected dis- tricts, and died of thé digeaeeh in various places, without communi- » cating it to the surrounding inhabitants. It is thus apparent that the origin and nature of epidemic cholera are involved in much uncertainty, and that this seeming diversity. of facts can be reconciled only by the adoption of the principles -of Chalin de Vinario; one of the most celebrated physicians of the fourteenth century, viz., ‘that all epidemic diseases may become contagious, and all fevers epidemic,”—a position confirmed by ob- servers of all subsequent ages. At Fort Dearborn, Chicago, which was temporarily re-occupied during the campaign against Black Hawk, malignant cholera dis- played its most fatal effects among our troops. According to the report of Assistant Surgeon 8S. G. J. De Camp, 200 cases were ad- mitted into hospital in the course of six or seven days, fifty-eight of which terminated fatally. ‘The strength of the command at this time was about1000. In regard to the mode in which this disease is communicated, Dr. De Camp inclines to the opinion of its conta- giousness, but under circumstances which might give to dysentery a similar character. ‘Several of the men belonging to Major W.’s command,” [which troops did not come from the east,] he says, “took the disease, and two died. Several citizens of the village also died of cholera, although previous to the arrival of the steam- boat, which brought the disease to Fort Dearborn, there was not a case of disease of any kind at the fort or in the village. When the troops marched for the Mississippi, they appeared in perfect health, yet on the way it broke out again, and three died. It made its ap- pearance again when the command reached the Mississippi, and be- came as fatal, I believe, as it had been at Fort Dearborn. ‘That the number of persons in any community susceptible of this dis- ease is not great, appears from the fact that at Fort Dearborn the sick-report was small compared with the number present. As the troops were very much crowded in the fort, and as the disease was making frightful havoc, I advised the commanding officer to have the well men quartered in a barn outside of the pickets, from which time the number of new cases declined. The disease attacked principally those of intemperate habits with broken-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33288379_0329.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
