46th Congress, 
1st Session. 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
Ex. Doc. 
No. 1. 
YELLOW FEVER ON UNITED STATES STEAMER PLYMOUTH. 
LETTER 
THE SECRETARY OE THE NAVY, 
IN REPLY TO 
A resolution of the House of Representatives in relation to the breaking out 
of the yellow fever on the United States steamer Plymouth. 
FROM 
April 12, 1879.—Referred to the Select Committee on the Origin, Introduction, and 
Prevention of Epidemic Diseases in the United States and ordered to be printed. 
Navy Department, April 11,1879. 
Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the following 
resolution adopted by the House of Representatives on the 8th instant, 
to wit: 
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Navy of the United States he requested to fur- 
nish this House with all available information regarding the breaking out of the 
yellow fever on the United States ship Plymouth, and what sanitary measures, if any, 
had been carried out to prevent the breaking out and spread of said disease on board 
of said ship. 
The documents herewith communicated contain all the official infor- 
mation in possession of the department in reference to the recent ap- 
pearance of yellow fever on the Plymouth. They are: 
1. Letter of Surgeon Theoron Woolverton, dated March 23, 1879y 
notifying Capt. D. B. Harmony, commanding the Plymouth, that the 
yellow fever had broken out on board. 
2. Letter of Captain Harmony to the department, dated April 2,1879, 
communicating the facts in relation to the sanitary measures adopted 
with reference to the Plymouth, and further facts bearing upon the 
appearance of the disease. 
3. Letter from Dr. Woolverton to the Surgeon-General of the Navy, 
giving further and more minute details. 
4. Letter from Capt. I. Young, commanding the Portsmouth navy- 
yard, reporting the arrival of the Plymouth at that station. 
From these reports it will appear that in consequence of the yellow 
fever having broken out on the Plymouth during the month of Novem- 
ber last, she was subjected to all the ordinary methods of purification 
during the past winter in the port of Boston. The opinion generally 
prevails among experienced naval men that the freezing process is suf- 
ficient protection against the reappearance of the yellow fever after it 
has once appeared on board a vessel. There are instances where it has 2 
YELLOW FEVER ON UNITED STATES STEAMER PLYMOUTH. 
resulted otherwise, although they have not been sufficiently numerous 
to entirely destroy this opinion. Acting under this general belief the 
Plymouth was sent to Boston, and again to sea after the close of the 
winter, with the conviction that she had been sufficiently frozen and 
fumigated to prevent a recurrence of the disease. It seems, however, 
that such was not the fact, and the question why it was not is now under 
investigation by a board of competent and experienced surgeons, who 
have been detailed for that purpose, and whose report will probably be 
made in a few days. It is expected they will give their professional 
opinion upon all the questions involved. 
The remarkable fact that the disease broke out at the precise point 
in the ship where it appeared in November last, may be supposed to 
weaken somewhat the theory that the freezing process is a reliable 
remedy. And yet it is proper to say that, as this process has heretofore 
been considered in so great a degree reliable, a single example cannot 
be sufficient to entirely overthrow the presumptions in its favor. The 
department will continue to resort to it in all cases, but will, at the same 
time, add to it all other known sanitary remedies, as well as such others 
as additional investigations may discover. It may be assumed to be 
true that, without proper ventilation and cleanliness, it will be impos- 
sible to keep any ship in a healthy condition, on account of the foul air 
which collects in their holds and necessarily generates some form of 
disease; and yet it is confidently believed that ours are the best venti- 
lated and cleanest ships in the world. Whether the yellow foyer can be 
thus generated it must be left to science to decide; but, at all events, it 
is certain that it will always prove more fatal where the ventilation is 
not good than where it is sufficient to purify the air. Experiments are 
now being made with several methods of ventilation, some of which 
promise good results, and they will be continued within the means of 
the department until some satisfactory plan shall be discovered. There 
is no special fund set apart by Congress for this purpose, and conse- 
quently the department is somewhat limited in the sphere of its investi- 
gations. Within that sphere, however, it will omit nothing in its power 
to make its experiments as thorough as possible. 
If the yellow fever be the result of an existing germ or poison in 
some of the lowest forms of animal or vegetable life, which conceals the 
seeds of the disease until developed by the action of heat, it will become 
most important to science to discover not only what the germ or poison 
is, but how it may be destroyed before development. If it cannot be 
destroyed by either severe heat or severe cold, or by the ordinary pro- 
cess of fumigating, or by chlorine gas, or by some of the other known 
methods of putting an end to animal and vegetable life, it will become 
one of the most important sanitary questions of the future to decide in 
what other manner the development of this destructive germ or poison 
is to be avoided and its consequences escaped. In the mean time, what- 
soever experiments either experience or science may suggest should be 
tried, in order that nothing shall be omitted to arrest the progress and 
ravages of this terrible scourge. 
Possibly if the Plymouth had been exposed to a lower temperature 
of cold, and had remained so for a longer time, the disease might not 
have reappeared upon her. As it was, the degree-of cold was increased 
beyond what it would be during an ordinary winter in the latitude of 
Boston, and was supposed to be sufficient, in view of the additional 
fact that the ship was thoroughly fumigated. It is, consequently, worthy 
of experiment to make additional tests as to the effects of both cold and 
heat, and all the forms of disinfectants, for at last science and experi- YELLOW FEVER ON UNITED STATES STEAMER PLYMOUTH. 
3 
ments must come to the aid of each other in the discovery of satisfactory 
and effective remedies. 
The Plymouth is now in quarantine and will remain so until all signs 
of the fever disappear. Her crew generally remain healthy and the sur- 
vivor of the two attacked at sea is convalescing. The further spread 
of the disease on board of her is not at present feared by her officers, 
although it has been decided that she will not be again sent, during the 
present season, into the tropical waters, where, in the opinion of Dr. 
Woolverton, the disease would be liable to break out again, an opinion 
which seems to be founded upon the fear that the germ or poison, what- 
ever it is, has not yet been entirely destroyed. If it be true, as he sup- 
poses, that this germ or poison has found a lodgment in the decayed 
timber, then it will become necessary to discover and remove it by sub- 
stituting sound timber in its place, and prosecuting such microscopic 
tests with the decayed particles as may, by possibility, lead to a discov- 
ery of what the cause of the disease is and the best method of destroying 
it. It is impossible to prevent the decay of timber in ships, although, 
by various processes, it may be, in some degree, preserved. The only 
remedy, therefore, is to remove it, which, if experience shall show that 
it may contain the seeds of contagious diseases, must be done at what- 
ever cost, or the ships must be abandoned whensoever any of their 
decayed parts shall be found to contain the-infectious poison. 
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, 
E. W. THOMPSON, 
Secretary of the Navy, 
Hon. S. J. Eandall, 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
Washington, 1). C. 
1.—Surgeon Woolverton to Captain Harmony. 
United States Ship Plymouth, Second Eate, 
At sea, latitude 27° 40' north, longitude 59° 59' west, 
Alar eh 23, 1879. 
Sir : I regret to inform you that two of the crew have been taken 
suddenly and violently sick with all the symptoms of yellow fever—one, 
Bichard* Saunders, machinist, yesterday morning, and the other, Peter 
Egan, boatswain’s mate, last night. 
In my opinion it would be dangerous to the health of the ship to pro- 
ceed further on this cruise. 
Very respectfully, &c., 
THEOEON WOOLVEETON, 
Surgeon United States Navy. 
Captain 11. B. Harmony, U. S. X., 
Commanding U. S. S. Plymouth. 
2.—Captain Harmony to the Secretary of the Navy. 
United States Ship Plymouth, Second Eate, 
Wood’s Holl, Mass., April 2, 1879. 
Sir : I have the honor to report the arrival of this ship at this port, 
having turned hack, on our passage to Guadeloupe, on Sunday, March 4 
YELLOW FEVER ON UNITED STATES STEAMER PLYMOUTH* 
23, in latitude 27° north, in consequence of two cases of yellow fever 
having broken out and determined as such on that date. 
While in Boston every means known to sanitary science had been 
used to disinfect the ship of the germs of yellow fever. She was en- 
tirely broken out, all stores of any kind landed and placed in rooms 
exposed to a freezing temperature, the ship thoroughly fumigated sev- 
eral times by burning large quantities of sulphur at different times on 
berth-deck, store-rooms, and in officers’ apartments. All fires were ex- 
tinguished, and the vessel exposed to the severe temperature of the 
past winter for over six weeks. Part of the time the ship was in dry- 
dock, where large quantities of ice remained, and the temperature fre- 
quently reached a point below zero. The water in the tanks and in 
buckets placed in the store-rooms was constantly frozen during that 
time, and even after the ship was taken out of dock and fires had been 
lighted under one of the boilers to heat the ship, she was so thoroughly 
chilled for several days that water froze in the bilges. All the men in 
the crew, who showed any signs of weak constitutions, or of being 
susceptible to climatic influences, were sent to the hospital; and we had 
every reason to believe the ship was in a condition to resist anything 
like a renewal of the disease (yellow fever) which brought her home last 
November. 
On the 10th of March we had a severe gale from the southwest going 
into northwest, whicli involved the necessity of battening down hatches 
for about twelve hours. 
The following day some fifteen men applied for treatment at the sick- 
bay, most of them with bronchitis and catarrh. The weather then was 
very pleasant and warm. On the 22d Richard Sanders, machinist, an 
apparently strong and healthy man, applied to the surgeon for treat- 
ment, having a violent fever. Curious to say, his hammock was slung 
in the precise place of the man who first showed symptoms of yellow 
fever in Santa Cruz on November 5. The same night, Peter Egan, 
boatswain’s mate, was attacked with violent fever when he was “turned 
out” of his hammock to go on watch. It was so violent that he fell two 
or three times while dressing himself. The following morning the sur- 
geon regarded the symptoms of these two cases as those of yellow fever, 
and, at two o’clock in the afternoon, so reported them to me in writing, 
and advised the seeking of a cooler climate. (I inclose a copy of his 
letter.) I at once ordered the ship headed to the northward, and the 
next morning got up steam, with full power, and made the best of my 
way to a cooler temperature. When abreast of Bermuda, finding we 
were short of coal, and every appearance of a gale of wind coming on, 
fearing I would have to batten down hatches again, and thus increase 
the temperature of berth-deck, so the fever would be further developed, 
I ran into port, procured sufficient coal to bring the ship to a northern 
port, remaining thirty-six hours, left and steered for Martha’s Vineyard 
Sound, making all the speed possible under steam and sail. 
This breaking out of the fever in the open ocean.with a temperature 
of very little above 70° I regard as a most remarkable circumstance, 
especially after the thorough freezing the ship went through while in 
Boston Harbor. The health officer at Bermuda, an English surgeon, 
told me of two cases of their own men-of-war which had similar experi- 
ence. Both of them were affected with fever, were sent to Halifax, 
spent the whole winter there, and in the spring went south. On their 
arrival in the latitude but a few degrees below Bermuda, the fever broke 
out on board of them and they were taken north again, and eventually 
went to England without serving out their commission. ‘YELLOW FLYER ON UNITED STATES STEAMER PLYMOUTH. 
5 
In our case it is an especially great misfortune, as the ship is in good 
condition for a cruise of at least eighteen months longer, the officers 
and crew attached to the ship looking forward with the greatest pleas- 
ure to the cruise in the West Indies, from which we have been so unfor- 
tunately turned back, to say nothing of our having passed through the 
stormy latitudes and reached a point where nothing but good weather 
might be expected until our return in June. It was with the greatest 
reluctance I changed the course; and nothing but imperative necessity 
and a due regard for the lives of the people under my charge would 
have prompted me to act as I have, under the advice of the surgeon. 
On leaving Bermuda the governor informed me that we would have to 
carry the pilot with us, as he would not allow him to land. 
I brought him with us to this port, and will turn him over to the 
British consul at the first port we anchor where there is one. Peter 
Egan, boatswain’s mate, died on the 31st of March. We have had a 
very severe gale for the past t\vo days. 
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
D. P>. HARMONY, 
Captain, U. S. N., commanding TJ. S. S. Plymouth. 
Hon. R. W. Thompson, 
Secretary of the Navy, Washington, I). C. 
Surgeon T. Wolverton to the Surgeon-General of the Navy. 
U. S. Steamer Plymouth, 2d Rate, 
Vineyard Sound, Mass., April 2, 1879. 
Sir : I have the honor to submit, for your information, the following 
report relating to the sanitary condition of this vessel: 
On the 7th of November last there were sent to the civil hospital at 
Fredericstaed, Santa Cruz, four cases of yellow fever, and the ship sailed 
for Norfolk. On the evening of the same day, the 7th, three additional 
cases presented themselves ; they all ran a mild course, and were con- 
valescent by the time we reached Norfolk, in a week. The disease first 
appeared at Santa Cruz in the person of Bianchi, a marine berth-deck 
cook, who had not been on shore since the ship had left the United 
States. 
The Plymouth lay in quarantine at Portsmouth, N. II., for seventeen 
days, and then went to Boston for some necessary repairs and to be 
broken out and frozen out. 
During the time she was at Boston, from December 19,1878, to March 
15, 1879, everything was removed from the ship, the crew was transferred 
to the receiving ship, and she remained fully exposed to intense cold 
for a month—for ten days in dry-dock with a temperature at times below 
zero. The water in the tanks was frozen, as it was in basins put into 
the storerooms of the ship, and, for several days after the tires were re- 
built on board, the cold continued so great that the water froze in the 
bilges at night. In addition, one hundred pounds of sulphur were 
burned below decks, the fumigation extending over two days, and the 
berth-deck, holds, and storerooms were thoroughly whitewashed with a 
mixture of lime and chloride of lime. 
On March 15, 1879, the Plymouth left Boston for a cruise to the 
Windward Islands, &c. On the night of the 19tli, in a severe gale of 6 
YELLOW FEVER ON UNITED STATES STEAMER PLYMOUTH. 
wind, the hatches had to he battened down, and the berth-deck became 
very damp and close. On the morning of the 22d, Richard Sanders,, 
machinist, was sick, but did not report until afternoon, when he had 
violent headache and fever. During the night of the 22d Peter Eagan, 
boatswain’s mate, was taken suddenly and violently sick with the same 
symptoms. On the 23d, these cases showing decided signs of yellow 
fever, I addressed the following letter to Capt. D. B. Harmony, com- 
manding : 
At Sea, Lat. N. 27.48, Loug. W. 59.59. 
Sir : I regret to inform you that two of the crew have been taken suddenly and 
violently sick, with all the symptoms of yellow fever—one, Richard Sanders, machin- 
ist, yesterday morning, and the other, Peter Eagan, boatswain's mate, last night. In 
my opinion it would be dangerous to the health of the ship to proceed further on this 
cruise. 
And I made the following recommendations: 
That hot coffee be served to the watch at midnight, upon turhkig out. 
That the men be allowed to sleep on deck under cover until the weather grows 
co >ler. 
That the crew be obliged to change damp clothing at once, upon occasion. 
The ship’s course was changed for northward. The two sick men were 
isolated in the sick-bay, no one seeing them but the medical officers and 
the nurses. The berth-deck was again fumigated with sulphur and all 
bedding aired. Fortunately no new case appeared after the ship turned, 
and we soon reached a temperate climate. Our maximum temperature 
on deck had been 77°. 
The men passed through the fever pretty favorably, and Sanders was 
convalescent about the seventh day; but Eagan, who was an old man, 
fell into a typhoid condition, and died March 31st. The weather at sea 
was, also, rough and unfavorable for his recovery. 
Eagan was buried April 1. April 2, Sanders was temporarily re- 
moved from the sick bay, and it was very thoroughly fumigated and 
scrubbed. All the bedding that had been used, and the clothing that 
might have become infected, were thrown overboard. There lias been 
no case of yellow fever in any man employed below the berth-deck, 
Sanders having been taken sick in hammock. All the cases, with the 
exception of Eagan, who berthed near the fore hatch, have occurred 
between the waist of the ship and the wardroom bulkhead on the berth- 
deck. 
I am convinced that the fever infection is confined to the hull of the 
ship, and especially to the unsound wood about the berth-deck, and 
that while the Plymouth is a safe and healthy ship in a temperate cli- 
mate, she cannot, for the present, be sent into a tropical climate without 
the certaity of an outbreak of yellow fever occurring on board, and that 
no precautionary measures whatever could avail to avert such a result. 
The ship’s stores were exposed to cold in Boston during the winter; 
the provisions were put on board there before our departure. I pre- 
sume they might be removed from the ship with safety, if it should be 
considered desirable. 
I am, sir, very respectfullv, your obedient servant, 
til FOR ON WOOLVERTON, 
Surgeon United States Navy. 
Surgeon-General J. Winthrop Taylor, U. S. A., 
Navy Department. YELLOW FEVER ON UNITED STATES STEAMER PLYMOUTH. 
7 
4—No. 50.] Capt. J. Young to the Secretary of the Navy. 
United States Navy-yard, Portsmouth, N. H., 
Commandants Office, April 7, 1879. 
Sir : I have the liouor to report, by letter, the arrival at this station 
of the United States steamer Plymouth, Capt. D. B. Harmony, com- 
manding-. The following extract from his report will show the condi- 
tion of the ship: “There has not been a new case of fever on board 
since the 22d ulto. We have had two cases. One man died the 31st; 
was buried the 1st inst.; the other man is now free from fever, and is 
rapidly convalescing. All infected clothing was thrown overboard at sea. 
We will not require the hospital-building for any purpose.” 
The health-officer of the port has visited the ship, and has placed her 
in quarantine. In reply to the department’s telegrams of the 5th inst., 
I have to state, as further particulars, that the hospital-building, in its 
present condition, can accommodate twelve patients comfortably, should 
it be required to be used. 
The United States store-ship Guard is broken out, and is now being 
cleansed and fumigated, which will require a little time, but could be 
taken at once to the lower harbor, should the department order it. 
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
J. YOUNG, 
Captain, Commandant. 
The Hon. R. W. Thompson, 
Secretary of the Navy, Washington, I). C.