In July, the city was alarmed, by Dr. Griffitts, with an account of several cases of the fever in Penn-street, near the water. The strictness with which the quarantine law had been executed, for a while rendered this account incredible with many people, and exposed the doctor to a good deal of obloquy. At length a vessel was discovered, that had arrived from one of the West-India islands on the 14th of May, and one day before the quarantine law was put into operation, from which the disease was said to be derived. Upon investigating the state of this vessel, it appeared that she had arrived with a healthy crew, and that no person had been sick on board of her during her voyage.
In the latter part of July and in the beginning of August, the disease gradually disappeared from every part of the city. This circumstance deserves attention, as it shows the disease did not spread by contagion.
About this time we were informed by the newspapers, that dogs, geese, and other poultry, also that wild pigeons were sickly in many parts of the country, and that fish on the Susquehannah, and oysters in the Delaware bay, were so unpleasant, that the inhabitants declined eating them. At the same time, flies were found dead in great numbers, in the unhealthy parts of the city. The weather was dry in August and September. There was no second crop of grass. The gardens yielded a scanty supply of vegetables, and of an inferior size and quality. Cherries were smaller than usual, and pear and apple-trees dropped their fruits prematurely, in large quantities. The peaches, which arrived at maturity, were small and ill-tasted. The grain was in general abundant, and of a good quality. A fly, of an unusual kind, covered the potatoe fields, and devoured, in some instances, the leaves of the potatoe. This fly has lately been used with success in our country, instead of the fly imported from Spain. It is equal to it in every respect. Like the Spanish fly, it sometimes induces strangury.
About the middle of August the disease revived, and appeared in different parts of the city. A publication from the academy of medicine, in which they declared the seeds of the disease to spread from the atmosphere only, produced a sudden flight of the inhabitants. In no year, since the prevalence of the fever, was the desertion of the city so general.
I shall now add a short account of the symptoms and treatment of this epidemic.
The arterial system was in most cases active. I met with a tense pulse in a patient after the appearance of the black vomiting. Delirium was less frequent in adults than in former years. In children there was a great determination of the disease to the brain.
I observed no new symptoms in the stomach and bowels. One of the worst cases of the fever which I saw was accompanied with colic. A girl of Thomas Shortall, who recovered, discharged 9 worms during her fever. It appeared in Mr. Thomas Roan, one of my pupils, in the form of a dysentery.
A stiffness, such as follows death, occurred in several patients in the city hospital before death.