I now enter upon a detail of some solitary cases of the epidemic, which soon afterwards spread distress through our city, and terror throughout the United States.
On the 5th of August, I was requested by Dr. Hodge to visit his child. I found it ill with a fever of the bilious kind, which terminated (with a yellow skin) in death on the 7th of the same month.
On the 6th of August, I was called to Mrs. Bradford, the wife of Mr. Thomas Bradford. She had all the symptoms of a bilious remittent, but they were so acute as to require two bleedings, and several successive doses of physic. The last purge she took was a dose of calomel, which operated plentifully. For several days after her recovery, her eyes and face were of a yellow colour.
On the same day, I was called to the son of Mrs. M'Nair, who had been seized violently with all the usual symptoms of a bilious fever. I purged him plentifully with salts and cremor tartar, and took ten or twelve ounces of blood from his arm. His symptoms appeared to yield to these remedies; but on the 10th of the month a hæmorrhage from the nose came on, and on the morning of the 12th he died.
On the 7th of this month I was called to visit Richard Palmer, a son of Mrs. Palmer, in Chesnut-street. He had been indisposed for several days with a sick stomach, and vomiting after eating. He now complained of a fever and head-ach. I gave him the usual remedies for the bilious fever, and he recovered in a few days. On the 15th day of the same month I was sent for to visit his brother William, who was seized with all the symptoms of the same disease. On the 5th day his head-ach became extremely acute, and his pulse fell to sixty strokes in a minute. I suspected congestion to have taken place in his brain, and ordered him to lose eight ounces of blood. His pulse became more frequent, and less tense after bleeding, and he recovered in a day or two afterwards.
On the 14th day of this month I was sent for to visit Mrs. Leaming, the wife of Mr. Thomas Leaming. I suspected at first that she had the influenza, but in a day or two her fever put on bilious symptoms. She was affected with an uncommon disposition to faint. Her pulse was languid, but tense. I took a few ounces of blood from her, and purged her with salts and calomel. I afterwards gave her a small dose of laudanum which disagreed with her. In my note book I find I have recorded that “she was worse for it.” I was led to make this remark by its being so very uncommon for a person, who had been properly bled and purged, to take laudanum in a common bilious fever without being benefited by it. She recovered, however, slowly, and was yellow for many days afterwards.
On the morning of the 18th of this month I was requested to visit Peter Aston, in Vine-street, in consultation with Dr. Say. I found him on the third day of a most acute bilious fever. His eyes were inflamed, and his face flushed with a deep red colour. His pulse seemed to forbid evacuations. We prescribed the strongest cordials, but to no purpose. We found him, at 6 o'clock in the evening, sitting upon the side of his bed, perfectly sensible, but without a pulse, with cold clammy hands, and his face of a yellowish colour. He died a few hours after we left him.
None of the cases which I have mentioned excited the least apprehension of the existence of a malignant or yellow fever in our city; for I had frequently seen sporadic cases in which the common bilious fever of Philadelphia had put on symptoms of great malignity, and terminated fatally in a few days, and now and then with a yellow colour on the skin, before or immediately after death.