[191] This proves that Dr. Treat was not the first person who suffered by this disease but it will not prove that the disease was not imported by capt. Bird’s vessel; for the fever spread in the vicinity of the vessel, not of the almshouse, where the first patient was carried.
[192] The following facts, in confirmation of the importation of the yellow fever, were communicated in a letter from an eminent practitioner in New Haven to a gentleman of the same profession in this town. They came to hand too late to be inserted otherwise than in a note, the sheet being already prepared for press:
A child was reported to have died of worms, and the parents were indulged in the common ceremonies of burial: but the truth was, that the disease had been the black vomit. The consequence was, a very extensive spread of the contagion. In less than a week six out of eight of the bearers were taken with the fever, and these were young persons from different parts of the town. “As to the suppositions (says the gentleman) with respect to local causes originating the disease, I conceive there is no occasion to seek for any other than what was contained in the chest (p. [444]) which was a blanket and clothing taken off the corpse of one who had died of the fever in the West Indies, and without the least formality of cleaning put down into a close chest, and brought to New Haven, and lodged in Austin’s store. Now it appears to me (these facts well ascertained) as idle to inquire after other causes, as it would, suppose it were the infection of the small pox brought in a chest, and a number of persons who had inspected the chest to be taken down with it. Would, in such a case, mankind have racked their inventions to have investigated other inducing causes? Surely not. . . . As to local putrefying substances, there was nothing but what has been common to the place, where the fever made its first appearance, for many years in dry summers.
“I might revert to the introduction of the fever by importation at Chatham on Connecticut river; at Providence, Rhode Island; in which the importation was as evident as at New Haven. In short, there is scarcely a place on the continent, where this fever has made its appearance, but what it may be traced to an imported origin. There have been but two or three exceptions which I have heard of.”
The following particulars relative to the disease at Portsmouth may likewise be deemed authentic, as communicated by a respectable gentleman (though not of the medical profession) in that place; “Most men of judgment and information on the subject suppose it was imported last year in a ship of Mr. Sheafe, which arrived from Martinico about the 20th of July. One man had died on board this ship in the West Indies: all the rest arrived in health; but the disorder made its appearance in a few days afterwards. Mr. Sheafe lost three of his own family. He lived within a stone’s throw of the wharf where his ship lay, and the fever spread in the neighbourhood. Mr. Plummer, in the next house to Mr. Sheafe’s, died about the 10th of August; Miss Parker, in the same house, four days afterwards; and Miss Smith, who had lived nearly opposite, removed to Berwick, and was there seized and died about the same time. It is worthy of remark, that this was always thought the most healthy part of the town.”
As a contrast to these evidences, we subjoin the following epitome of part of Dr. Rush’s address to the citizens of Philadelphia on the origin of the yellow fever, &c.[193] In this address, the Doctor considers it as indisputable that the disease is, in all countries, the offspring of putrid vegetable and animal exhalations; but it prevails only in hot climates and in hot seasons. In Philadelphia it arises, 1. From the docks; and hence, in New York, it has got the name of the dock fever. 2. From the foul air of ships. 3. From the common sewers. 4. From the gutters. 5. From dirty cellars and yards. 6. Privies. 7. Putrefying masses of matter lying in the neighbouring part of the city. 8. Impure pump water.
The disease is considered by the Doctor as an higher degree of bilious fever. He answers the objection by Dr. Chisholm (see p. [467].) where he speaks of the fever not being produced in 1778, “when it was left in a more filthy state by the British army than it has been at any time since.” To this he answers that for the production of the disease three things are necessary. 1. Putrid exhalations. 2. An inflammatory constitution of the atmosphere, and, 3. An exciting cause, such as great heat, cold, fatigue, or intemperance. The constitution of the atmosphere, however, he looks upon to be the principal cause; as without this constitution mild diseases would be produced, but along with it they become very malignant. “The pestilential constitution of the air in the United States began in 1791. It prevailed in Charleston in 1792, and it has been epidemic in one or more of the cities or country towns of the United States every year since. . . . It has not been confined to the seaports. It has prevailed since the year 1793 in many of the villages of New England, and of the southern states. On the Genesee river it has become so prevalent as to acquire the name of the Genesee fever. The bilious fevers which prevailed in all the above places before the year 1793 were of a mild nature, and seldom mortal. They have lately disappeared, or are much diminished; and have been succeeded by a fever which frequently terminates in death in five days, with a yellow skin and black vomiting.” These circumstances are supported by undeniable testimony.
In answer to the question, “Can the yellow fever be imported?” Our author answers as follows; “I once thought it might; but the foregoing facts authorise me to assert, that it cannot, so as to become epidemic in any city or country. There are but two authorities on which the belief of this disease being imported rests. These are Dr. Lining’s and Dr. Lind’s. The former says it was imported into Charleston in 1732, 1739, 1745 and 1748. The latter says it was conveyed into Philadelphia, where it afterwards became epidemic, by means of the clothes of a young man who died in Barbadoes. No circumstances of ships or names are mentioned with these assertions to entitle them to credit, and from the facility with which vague reports of the foreign origin of this disease have been admitted and propagated by physicians in other countries, there is reason to believe the assertions of those two physicians are altogether without foundation. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, after two weeks investigation, were unable to discover any ships, clothes, or sick person, that could have introduced the disease into Philadelphia in the year 1793. The Academy of Medicine have clearly proved, by many documents, that the disease was not imported in the years 1797 and 1798. The origin of a few cases, reported by Dr. Griffitts and other members of the College of Physicians, which have lately appeared in our city, has in vain been sought for from a prize sloop of the Ganges. Two affidavits of Messieurs Hill and Ingersol prove that she had been healthy in the West Indies, and that no person had been sick on board of her during her voyage, nor after her arrival in our port. Equally unsuccessful have been the attempts to derive those cases from beds and blankets infected by the fever of last year. In Boston, Connecticut, New York, Baltimore, Norfolk and Charleston, both physicians and citizens have long ago rejected the opinion of the importation of the fever. Some physicians suppose it possible for the contagion of this fever to adhere to the timbers of ships that have sailed from West India ports, and that it may be propagated from them to a whole neighbourhood, although houses, and even streets, interpose between them. This opinion is too absurd to stand in need of refutation. Indeed every thing that relates to the importation of this fever is contrary to reason and facts—It is an error, substituted in the room of a belief that all pestilential diseases were derived from the planets.”
[193] Printed in 1799.
[194] This author relates the following curious anecdote concerning tea-drinking: “We had a gentleman in Switzerland, who in every respect knew how to assume the tone of majesty. He was told one day that nothing elevated the dignity of a king so much as when every thing around him had a pale look. This intimation was sufficient for him. He directed all his servants to be blooded once a month, and obliged each of them to swallow fifty dishes of tea every day.” Tea is said to produce a cadaverous hue in the person who drinks it after bloodletting.