Report on yellow fever in the U.S.S. Plymouth in 1878-'9 / prepared under the direction of Philip S. Wales.

  • Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on yellow fever in the U.S.S. Plymouth in 1878-'9 / prepared under the direction of Philip S. Wales. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    liminary report. To tliis end we have arranged with a jSTew York iirni for the necessary supply of the liquefied gas, and have procured self-registering thermometers of high range to be placed in the different ])arts of the ship or apartjnent to be experimented ujjon. Unexpected and vexatious delays, arising from a breakdown in the condensing ajjparatus, have up to this time prevented the firm with which we have contracted from furnishing the liquefied gas, and this final exi)eriment, which we regard as a necessary preliminary to action upon our recommendation, remains yet to be tried. Should it be found to be practicable to introduce sulphurous anhydride into every part of a ship, and to maintain it within her hold at a temperature of, or exceeding 250° F., its use on ship-board will present no very serious practical difficulties. Since the gas is condensed under a pressure not exceeding three atmospheres, it can be safely stored and shipped in soda- water tanks, and will aftbrd the necessary pressure by its own vaporization. Proper superheaters, consisting of a double coil of metallic tubing, somewhat similar to the Herreshoff boiler, msky be kept on hand at suitable i)oints, or shipi)ed when required. No other apparatus besides a supply of jointed pipe for the conduction of the heated gas to dift'erent parts of the ship, and of self-registering thermometers, will be required. The crew and stores of a ship infected with yellow fever having been lauded, and every part made as accessible as possible, the couducting tubes should be led fore and aft, as recom- mended in our preliminary report, the hatches closed, and the hot gas delivered from the spar-deck for such a length of time as experiment shall show to be necessary to the maintenance of a temperature of 250° F. throughout. Should it not be con- sidered advisable to establish a well-appointed disinfecting station, which would doubtless be the best plan to adopt, we conceive that disinfection might tluis be effected in ships while still on their stations. The conclusion s to be drawn from the statements of this report are sufficiently obvious, and may be summed up in a few words. In the first place, we find lying at the very root of the evil described the faulty construction, in a sanitary sense, of the ship herself. Built of materials not protected against the