“It is with peculiar satisfaction that I communicate to the public, through your paper, that the African Society, touched with the distresses which arise from the present dangerous disorder, have voluntarily undertaken to furnish nurses to attend the afflicted; and that, by applying to Absalom Jones and William Gray, both members of that society, they may be supplied.
MATTH. CLARKSON,
September 6th, 1793.Mayor.”
It was not long after these worthy Africans undertook the execution of their humane offer of services to the sick before I was convinced I had been mistaken. They took the disease in common with the white people, and many of them died with it. I think I observed the greatest number of them to sicken after the mornings and evenings became cool. A large number of them were my patients. The disease was lighter in them than in white people. I met with no case of hæmorrhage in a black patient.
The tobacconists and persons who used tobacco did not escape the disease. I observed snuff-takers to be more devoted to their boxes than usual, during the prevalence of the fever.
I have remarked, formerly, that servant maids suffered much by the disease. They were the only patients I lost in several large families. I ascribe their deaths to the following causes:
1st. To the great and unusual debility induced upon their systems by labour in attending their masters and mistresses, or their children. Debility, according to its degrees and duration, seems to have had the same effect upon the mortality of this fever that it has upon the mortality of an inflammation of the lungs. When it is moderate and of short duration it predisposes only to a common pneumony, but when it is violent and protracted, in its degrees and duration, it predisposes to a pulmonary consumption.
2dly. To their receiving large quantities of impure air into their bodies, and in a most concentrated state, by being obliged to perform the most menial offices for the sick, and by washing, as well as removing foul linen, and the like.
3dly. To their being left more alone in confined or distant rooms, and thereby suffering from depression of spirits, or the want of a punctual supply of food and medicines.