REPORT ON EPIDEMICS. REPORT 
ON THE 
EPIDEMICS OF LOUISIANA, MISSISSIPPI, 
ARKANSAS, AND TEXAS, 
FOR THE YEARS 1854 AND 1855, 
TO THE 
* 
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, 
AT THE 
ANNUAL MEETING IN DETROIT, MICHIGAN, MAY, 1856. 
BY 
ERASMUS D. FENNER, M. D., 
OF NEW ORLEANS. 
EXTRACTED FROM THE 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
PHILADELPHIA: 
T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 
1856. CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
Malignancy of the Yellow Fever of 1854 and 1855 7 
Range of the Fever widening year by year ....... 8 
Circumstances which seem to prove its contagiousness . . ' . . . 9 
Epidemic of 1854 ............ 11 
Epidemic of 1855 ............ 15 
Pathology and treatment of Yellow Fever 22 
I. Quarantine and Yellow Fever at Natchez during 1853-'54 and '55 : the 
futility of the former and the local origin of the latter conclusively 
shown; and admitted for 1855, by the most strenuous advocates of 
the one, and the most ardent disbelievers of the other. By C. H. 
Stone, M. D., of Natchez 27 
II. On the Yellow Fever of Woodville, and its vicinity, in the State of 
Mississippi. By Alfred C. Holt, M. D 37 
III. Yellow Fever in the Country: An Account of the Disease as it pre- 
vailed at Judge Baker's Plantation, Parish of St. Mary, Louisiana, in 
September and October, 1854. By C. R. Fassitt, M. D. . . .46 
IV. Yellow Fever in the Country: An Account of the Disease as it prevailed 
on the Coast below New Orleans, in 1854 and '55. By D. R. Fox, 
M. D 49 
V. A Report of the Yellow Fever at Centreville, in 1855, with some Re- 
marks on the Disease as it appeared in the Parish of St. Mary, in 
1853, '54, and '55. By Wm. B. Wood, M. D 55 
VI. Yellow Fever in Thibodeaux, La., in the year 1854. By M. A. McLeod, 
of Thibodeaux 66 
VIL An Account of the Epidemic Yellow Fever at Cooper's Wells, in Hinds 
County, Miss., during the Summer and Autumn of 1855. By J. S. 
Beazley, M. D. 69 
VIII. On the Topography, Climate, and Diseases of Washington, Texas. By 
T. J. Heard, M. D 74 
IX. Yellow Fever at Jeanerrett's, Parish of St. Mary, La. By J. B. Dungan, 
M. D 81 
X. Yellow Fever at Brandon, Mississippi, in 1853 and 1854. By J. J. 
Thornton, M. D 83 
XL Yellow Fever at the Village of Cloutierville, La., in the years 1853 and 
1854. By S. 0. Scruggs, M. D. 88 
On the Yellow Fever of Noi-folk and Portsmouth, Va. By E. D. Fenner, M. D. 95 
APPENDIX. REPORT. 
The reporter of the American Medical Association, on the Epi- 
demics of the above named States, after expressing his regret at not 
having been able to perform the duty assigned him, for the year 
1854, now respectfully submits the following facts and observations 
relative to the two principal epidemics that have prevailed in this 
region during the two years 1854 and 1855. It will be seen that 
the bulk of this report is made up of contributions kindly fur- 
nished by my professional friends, to whom I must be allowed the 
privilege of thus publicly expressing my grateful acknowledg- 
ments ; for without this material aid it would have been impossible 
for me to have prepared a satisfactory report, on account of the 
numerous and pressing engagements upon my time. 
Yellow fever and Cholera are the only epidemics to which we 
invite attention; and especially the former, as it has been the most 
extensive in its range, and most fatal in its effects: the latter 
(cholera), may be passed over with a few general remarks at the 
close of this report. 
I feel authorized to say the yellow fever of the last two years in 
New Orleans was fully as malignant as the memorable epidemic of 
1853, and the sufferers and victims would have been equally nume- 
rous, if there had been as many susceptible subjects exposed to it. 
When we recollect that upwards of twenty thousand people in this 
city suffered and survived the fever of 1853, it will readily appear 
that the epidemic influence in the last two years must have been very 
severe, to have caused about 2500 deaths each year. At some other 
places in my district this disease prevailed with equal malignity; 
as in Galveston, Texas, in 1854, and in Vicksburg, in 1855. It is 
a fact worth mentioning, that the city of Galveston, a seaport 
directly on the Gulf of Mexico, and in constant communication 8 
with New Orleans and Houston, Texas, escaped this epidemic in 
1855, whilst both of the cities named were severely scourged, and 
this too, without the supposed protective agency of Quarantine. 
It was remarked, in my last report, that the area or range of 
yellow fever was evidently enlarging from year to year. Subse- 
quent observations furnish farther evidence of this fact. For in- 
stance-the highest point on the Mississippi River at which the 
epidemic of 1853 prevailed, was the little town of Napoleon, about 
two hundred miles above Vicksburg, and the same distance below 
Memphis. In that year, upwards of sixty cases of the disease were 
carried into Memphis, and more than forty of them proved fatal, 
no effort whatever being made to isolate the disease, yet the citizens 
of the place did not suffer in the least. It would not prevail there 
at that time; but, strange to say, in 1855 the disease broke out 
there, and prevailed as an epidemic, the first cases being traced by 
Dr. Shanks to a steamboat plying between that place and New 
Orleans. Memphis is a city of about 15,000 inhabitants, situated 
on a high bluff, and was thought to be secure against the yellow 
fever of New Orleans, from the fact that hundreds of cases had 
been brought there without any injurious effect upon the citizens. 
Nevertheless, we have the reliable testimony of the late Dr. Wyatt 
Christian, of Memphis, for stating that, in 1828, when the place was 
only a small village, yellow fever did break out near a large pile of 
decaying cotton-seed, and prevailed to the extent of forty or fifty 
cases. The offending cause was then removed, and the disease 
vanished ; so that some change must have recently taken place in 
the locality of Memphis, which either caused the disease to spring 
up spontaneously, or furnished a nidus favorable to its regeneration 
and extension when once introduced from abroad. 
Yellow fever has also extended, in another direction, further than 
it ever did before-I mean the interior of the country, remote from 
the great river. In 1854, the village of Brandon, in Mississippi, 
the terminus of the railroad leading from Vicksburg, and about 
sixty miles distant from that place, was severely scourged for the 
first and only time. Brandon is situated in a high pine region, and 
the only recent change that has taken place in the locality was made 
by the deep cuts for the railroad. This road runs through Jackson, 
the capital of the State, which has been scourged by yellow fever 
for the last three years. Likewise, the village of Canton, about 
twenty-four miles from Jackson, and seventy-four from Vicksburg, 
was severely scourged in the summer and autumn of 1855. The 9 
railroad has been recently extended from Jackson to this place, though 
it was not completed at the time yellow fever prevailed. Besides 
the cuts into the ground necessary for the railroad, I learn there was 
a brick yard in the town, which made a large pool of stagnant water, 
that may have had some agency in producing disease. The valu- 
able contributions to this report obtained from my correspondents 
in different parts of the district, will be found to contain much in- 
teresting information relative to the behavior of yellow fever in the 
interior of the country. The authors of these papers appear to differ 
in regard to the origin and transportability of the disease, but the 
reader may form his own conclusion from the facts given. 
In my last report, I expressed the belief that yellow fever was 
one of the forms or varieties of endemic fever that originates spontane- 
ously in New Orleans, and most generally, was not at all infectious, or 
capable of being transported to distant and dissimilar localities, and 
there communicated to the resident population without the assist- 
ance of any other deleterious influence. At the same time, it was 
admitted that many occurrences of recent date in this region, tended 
strongly to prove that the materies morbi could sometimes be conveyed 
from an infected to a healthy locality, where, most probably, it would 
not originate, and then be communicated from person to person like 
measles, scarlatina, and hooping-cough. This is the doctrine of 
" contingent contagion," so strongly opposed by the distinguished 
Dr. La Roche, of Philadelphia. 
I confess it is contrary to my first convictions as well as to all 
my observations up to the year 1853, but I trust I shall never 
become so bigoted in any belief that I cannot possibly be con- 
vinced of its fallacy, if it should be false, as is liable to happen in 
all human judgments. Dr. Rush once proclaimed the belief that 
yellow fever was an imported and contagious disease, but afterwards 
acknowledged his error and obtained much credit for magnanimity, 
by openly recanting a published opinion. In like manner I have 
but little doubt that if Dr. La Roche had spent the last three sum- 
mers in this region, he would have found sufficient cause to modify 
his opinion on this point. It is well known that since the days of 
Rush the non-contagion of yellow fever has been the doctrine of all 
American Professors, with the exception of the late Dr. Hosack, of 
New York, and Dr. Dickson of Charleston. And this is the doc- 
trine that was instilled into the mind of nearly every physician now 
practising in this region; but an extensive intercourse with the 10 
profession leads me to say, in all candor, that the experience of the 
last three years has greatly modified opinion on this subject. 
Some physicians still deny, in toto, the contagion of yellow fever; 
but I think the majority of those who have recently been brought 
in contact with it in this region now admit, that under favorable 
circumstances and within a limited region, the morbific cause may be 
conveyed from one place to another, and take effect upon persons 
thus exposed to it. The mass of the people who have been the 
sufferers, are almost unanimous in this belief. But, to the philo- 
sophical inquirer after truth, is presented an array of facts appa- 
rently of the most contradictory character in relation to this ques- 
tion. Why should the disease be contagious at one place and not 
at another ? in one season and not another ? Why should it now 
prevail epidemically, for the first time, at a town or plantation on 
the Mississippi River, which has always been in direct communica- 
tion with New Orleans, and into which cases of the disease and all 
sorts of goods have been introduced from an infected district, hitherto, 
with impunity ? Formerly, when it broke out at one of its old 
habitats, as New Orleans, Mobile, or Natchez, cases might be taken 
thence into the neighboring country, without endangering the in- 
habitants ; but not so now. It seldom fails to spread when taken to 
the neighborhood of these places. 
When the disease now breaks«out for the first time at a town far 
up one of the navigable streams, the inhabitants flee with conster- 
nation to the surrounding country, carrying in their systems the 
seeds of infection, which then mature and develop the fatal fever, 
but incapable of spreading among the attendants on the sick; but 
perhaps a like impunity will not be observed a few years hence. 
Such are some of the curious and apparently antagonistic facts that 
require to be reconciled and explained before we can claim to un- 
derstand the true nature and character of yellow fever. 
After the great epidemic of 1853, the citizens of Louisiana were 
so fully persuaded of the foreign origin and contagiousness of yellow 
fever that they loudly demanded of their Representatives in the 
Legislature to establish quarantine for the protection of New Orleans 
and the interior of the country against the incursion of their in- 
sidious enemy. The effort was made at the Session of 1854, which 
took place in January and February, but failed for want of proper 
management by the advocates of the measure. In the following 
summer the disease again broke out in this city and prevailed with 11 
terrible malignity. At the succeeding session of the Legislature 
quarantine was established, and has been enforced ever since. 
We will proceed at once with an account of the rise and progress 
of the last two epidemics in New Orleans. 
On the 8th of April, 1854, a lady arrived here from Havana, in 
the last stage of yellow fever, with which she had been attacked 
soon after getting out to sea. She was taken to the St. Louis Hotel, 
one of the largest in the city, and died on the following day, with 
black vomit and yellow skin. It had no injurious effect whatever 
upon the inmates of the house. 
The next case pronounced yellow fever was of a somewhat ques- 
tionable character. It occurred in the upper part of the city, near 
St. Mary's Market, in a man of rather intemperate habits, who had 
been about the city four or five years, running in and out on steam- 
boats, but had never had yellow fever. He was employed painting 
a steamboat on this side of the river when he was attacked with 
fever. Had nothing to do with ships. He died on the 18th of June, 
and ninth day of illness; he threw up something very like black 
vomit, and the body turned yellow. The case is only considered 
questionable from the fact that it had been treated by a physician of 
not very fair standing, who had given it large quantities of brandy 
and morphine, which may have caused gastro-duodenitis and effu- 
sion of blood from the mucous membrane. It thus appears that 
this case occurred more than two months after the case at the St. 
Louis Hotel, and about a mile distant. 
The next, and probably the first unquestionable case, was admit- 
ted into the Luzenberg Hospital, on the 17th of June. The subject 
was a robust German aged about 30 years, who had been in this 
country three years, mostly engaged on steamboats running from 
New Orleans to St. Louis and Louisville. Arrived here from one 
of the latter places on the 12th of June, and stopped on Fulton 
Street, between 8th and 9th Streets, which is high up in the Fourth 
District, or Lafayette. He was attacked on the 16th of June, and 
entered the hospital on the 17th, as above stated. He died on the 
4th day of illness, after throwing up large quantities of black vomit, 
and the body turned yellow. Dr. Langenbacher, the resident phy- 
sician, had no hesitation in pronouncing it a genuine case of yellow 
fever. So here is a case occurring at least a mile distant from the 
last one, and taken sick very soon after coming into the city, not 
from an infected place or vessel, but from the upper country. 
We are indebted to Dr. Langenbacher for notes of the following 
cases, which were amongst the earliest that occurred this summer. 12 
Case.-A German girl, who had been in the city seven months, 
and lived at 74 New Levee Street, between Notre Dame and Girod, 
near the river, and about midway the length of the city, was 
brought to the Luzenberg Hospital, on the 24th of June. She 
proved to be a plain case of yellow fever; had severe hemorrhage 
from the nose, and the eyes turned yellow-recovered. 
Case.-A German servant girl, aged 17 years, residing on Jeffer- 
son Street, not far from Jackson Square-been in the city about 
six months; was taken to the Luzenberg Hospital on the 29th of 
June, and died with black vomit on the 2d of July. 
Case.-I. S., a German baker, aged 32 years-been in the city 
six months-resided on Fourth Street near Rousseau-was brought 
to the Luzenberg Hospital on the 30th of June; then sick three 
days-began to throw up black vomit the evening of the day he 
entered, and died on the following day (July 1st), with black vomit 
and hemorrhage from the bowels. This man had lived high up 
town, worked constantly in the Louisiana Bakery, and never went 
about delivering bread in the city, or on board of ships. 
Cases Imported From Havana.-On the same day the case last 
given entered the hospital, a Spanish sailor was admitted into the 
same room, in the last stage of yellow fever. lie was brought from 
a vessel which had just arrived from Havana, with several cases of 
yellow fever on board. This man died on the 3d of July. Several 
other cases were admitted from the same vessel, which lay near the 
lower Cotton-press, at least two miles below the place where the case 
last given originated. It is nevertheless true that immediately after 
the Havana vessel arrived, yellow fever broke out in the adjacent 
shipping, and became epidemic in that part of the city, long before 
it did in the upper part, where the first cases occurred. What 
agency the vessel had in bringing about this event, is left for the 
reader to judge. It is due to the truth of history to say, however, 
that yellow fever epidemics do not always break out in the same 
part of the city, but sometimes in one and again in another. We 
have already shown that there had been unquestionable cases of 
yellow fever in the city before the arrival of this vessel from 
Havana. On the 30th of June, I was informed by Dr. W. that 
he had seen several cases around Gormley's Basin, in the rear of 
the city, where some of the first cases occurred in 1853. 
At a meeting of the Physico-Medical Society on the 3d of July 
one of the members stated that he had recently seen a case of 11 gas. 
iritis1'1 terminate fatally with black vomit. 13 
First Case at the Charity Hospital.-L. II., a German seaman, aged 
22 years, was admitted into ward 22 on the 13th of July. Said he 
came last from Rio Janeiro, where he had remained a month. Six 
weeks ago he came to New Orleans on board the ship Caroline, and 
was not attacked until he had been here five weeks, viz., on the 8th 
of July. The case was almost hopeless when admitted, and died on 
the 14th of July with copious black vomit. 
The next case admitted into this hospital was on the 22d of July. 
The next on the 24th of July. On the 28th there were eight cases 
in the house, and by the 1st of August the number of admissions 
got up to 36. The disease increased so rapidly that in the month 
of August the admissions amounted to 683, and in September to 
1291. From that time it steadily declined. 
But let us turn back a little to some more imported cases. On 
the 14th of July the barque Tonquin, Captain Hill, arrived here 
from Baltimore, having called and remained a week at Havana, 
where there was a great deal of yellow fever, especially among the 
shipping. Captain H. left there on the 1st of July. Soon after 
getting to sea, fever broke out on board, but not very malignant. 
Captain H. was attacked the day he got into New Orleans, and had 
a pretty severe spell. As before stated, the disease was prevailing 
here when this vessel arrived; she took position in the Fourth Dis- 
trict, below Jackson Street, but I could not trace any injurious 
effects directly to it. The disease did not become epidemic in that 
district until about three weeks after her arrival. 
So much for the origin and commencement of this epidemic, 
which finally overran the whole city, and proved as fatal in propor- 
tion to the number attacked as that of 1853. I leave the reader to 
judge from the facts given, which were collected carefully at the 
time of occurrence, whether the disease originated in the city or was 
imported from abroad. My own opinion is that it originated from 
local causes belonging to the city, and in precisely the same manner 
that it always originates here. After the middle of May, in this city, 
the milder forms of fever (intermittent and remittent bilious) gradu- 
ally run into the yellow fever type which, if the season be a very 
sickly one, gains complete ascendence, but does not supersede en- 
entirely all others, and reigns for a period of seven or eight weeks; 
then gradually falls back again into the milder types, and disappears 
after cold weather sets in. The following table will sufficiently 
prove the truth of this observation. 14 
Table showing the number of Fever Cases of all kinds admitted, monthly, into 
the New Orleans Charity Hospital, during the year 1854; also the ad- 
missions for all diseases during the same period. 
1854. 
FEVERS. 
January. 
February. 
March. 
April. 
May. 
June. 
July. 
August. 
September. 
October. 
November. 
December. 
3 
© 
Intermittent 
258 
130 
156 
129 
101 
140 
222 
212 
186 
245 
190 
203 
2172 
Remit, bilious 
18 
20 
14 
11 
12 
66 
70 
97 
17 
52 
49 
29 
455 
Continued 
3 
2 
3 
1 
6 
9 
4 
2 
1 
5 
3 
39 
Typhoid 
38 
20 
12 
13 
22 
12 
15 
10 
7 
22 
29 
37 
237 
Typhus 
7 
5 
3 
8 
7 
... 
2 
2 
... 
4 
13 
51 
Congestive 
... 
... 
1 
3 
1 
... 
2 
7 
Ephemeral 
5 
3 
2 
3 
3 
4 
io 
17 
10 
6 
8 
2 
73 
1'ernicious 
2 
2 
2 
1 
3 
2 
10 
6 
5 
33 
Scarlet 
2 
... 
1 
1 
3 
2 
... 
2 
1 
... 
3 
15 
Inflammatory 
... 
2 
2 
1 
2 
5 
5 
6 
... 
3 
... 
26 
Cerebral 
... 
1 
... 
1 
2 
Rheumatic 
... 
1 
1 
2 
1 
1 
7 
13 
Gastric 
12 
18 
7 
11 
14 
12 
74 
Nervous 
... 
... 
1 
... 
1 
15 
6 
23 
Chagres 
1 
2 
... 
ii 
8 
1 
3 
26 
Catarrhal 
... 
1 
5 
2 
7 
4 
1 
20 
Yellow 
... 
36 
683 
1291 
606 
133 
5 
2754 
All fevers 
334 
186 
196 
168 
156 
256 
401 
1065 
1530 
951 
461 
316 
6020 
All diseases 
1092 
720 
774 
669 
675 
783 
964 
1664 
1902 1454 
1188 
1318 
13203 
It will be seen that nearly half the cases admitted into the hospital 
this year, were fevers; and of these, more than one-third were inter- 
mittents. During the three months that yellow fever prevailed epi- 
demically, nearly one-third as many cases of intermittent and re- 
mittent fever were admitted. I have repeatedly shown that yellow 
fever never breaks out suddenly here, presenting its characteristic 
features from the first; but, on the contrary, that the first cases are 
generally of a very doubtful character, looking so much like bilious 
remittent fever that physicians cannot be brought to agree on the 
diagnosis until a number of cases have died with black vomit. It 
will be remembered, that the first cases of this year were observed 
in different parts of the city nearly a month before any case was 
admitted into the Charity Hospital; and particular attention is in- 
vited to the number of admissions for intermittent and remittent 
bilious fevers about the time that yellow fever appeared, and during 
its entire prevalence, as shown by the table. This is the case in New 
Orleans every year. It will be seen, further on, that my correspond- 
ent, Dr. Beazly, of Mississippi, noted the same thing in the epidemic 
at Cooper's Wells. 15 
The total mortality, in the whole city, for this year, was 11,347 : 
of which there died of yellow fever 2,316, and of cholera 880. 
From New Orleans, as a starting-point, yellow fever spread far 
and wide into the interior of the country, the attendant circum- 
stances appearing to support the opinion that it was conveyed from 
place to place, and communicated by infection. At the close of this 
epidemic, the popular call for the establishment of quarantine was 
so general and urgent, that a law was passed for this purpose at the 
next session of the Louisiana Legislature, which met in January. 
How far the hopes and expectations of the advocates of this measure 
were realized, will appear from the occurrences which are about to 
be detailed. It is proper to state, however, that those of us who 
believed in the local origin of yellow fever, and expected no benefit 
from quarantine, withheld all active opposition to the measure, and 
were willing to give it a fair trial. It was evident that the public 
mind was so strongly biased in favor of it, that nothing else would 
be done to protect the city against the ravages of this pestilence 
until quarantine had been fairly tried. The law was put in opera- 
tion on the first day of June, 1855, and it must be confessed that 
the importation of yellow fever from abroad was entirely prevented; 
nevertheless, we were again scourged by a severe epidemic. 
EPIDEMIC OF 1855. 
The editors of the Medical News and Hospital Gazette (August, 
1855), have furnished so full and correct an account of the first 
cases of this epidemic that I cannot do better than insert it entire. 
"Yellow Fever.-In the June and July numbers of our journal 
we reported all the genuine cases of yellow fever (eleven in num- 
ber) which had occurred in the Charity Hospital up to June 25th. 
Our readers may rely on the data furnished, inasmuch as we 
promptly rejected all cases in relation to which there was any real 
doubt as to the nature of the disease, and we have thus been able 
to furnish them the most ample and reliable material on which to 
exercise their speculative propensities-more complete and more 
reliable than can be found elsewhere, as we recorded our notes at 
the bedside of the patients, and accepted nothing second-handed. 
"Just at this time, when the great question of quarantine is 
agitating the public mind, the most interesting question connected 
with these cases relates to their origin, and in reviewing them we shall 16 
merely advert to facts, without intruding our individual opin- 
ion. Every intelligent mind will make its own inference at last, 
and to afford the material for this purpose is our peculiar pro- 
vince. 
"In our June number is reported the case of John Hailey, who 
entered the Hospital on April 30th and died on 3d May. He 
seems to have been taken sick on his way down to the city on board 
a steamboat (either the Louisa or Rapides), on which he acted as 
cook. He was a native of Ireland and unacclimated. Yellow fever 
was not suspected at the time of his illness, and he was considered 
a case of "bilious fever" until black vomit made its appearance. 
No autopsy ever revealed more clearly all the characteristics of 
genuine yellow fever. Although the evidence is not positive, still, 
all the data tend to show that the individual had no communication 
with the shipping; he was taken sick away from the city, though 
he was running to and from the same every ten or fifteen days on 
one of the boats named. 
" The excitement caused by the case of Hailey in the Hospital 
soon subsided; none of the patients in the ward where he died took 
the disease, and things went on quietly until the 19th June, when 
a very severe case entered ward 22, and died on the 20th, after 
having thrown up black vomit profusely. This man's name was 
William Barneman-German-aged 21 years-one month in New 
Orleans-from Girod Street-worked on the levee for steamboats- 
taken sick on the 15th June. Autopsy revealed plenty of pure 
black vomit in the stomach. 
" However, by reference to our reports in July number, it will be 
seen that a case of yellow fever, Carl Draugod, really appeared in 
the hospital as early as the 15th of June. lie was seen by the 
visiting physician of the ward for the first time on the morning of 
the 16th, and although suspected at the time, nothing was said about 
it until the morning of the 19th, when he was bleeding freely from 
the nose-having, also, bled from the gums quite freely on the 18th. 
or the fifth day of the disease. All who saw this case pronounced 
it yellow fever. 
"Thus, then, the man Draugod (of June 15th) was the first case 
that appeared in the hospital after the case of May 3d, or forty-three 
days previously. Let us see who Draugod is:- 
" He is a native of Germany, from Liverpool direct, and had been 
in this city five weeks when taken sick-had been acting as servant 17 
in the beer saloon of Frank Weber1 ever since his arrival, and had 
no connection with ships. During this man's illness in the ward 
sundry cases of intermittent and remittent fever, diarrhoea, etc., have 
occupied the beds around him, but none took yellow fever. 
"There is no evidence, then, of Draugod's having 'caught' the 
disease from any person or bale of goods, etc.; he was not only the 
first recorded case for the month of June, 1855, but he was simply 
an unacclimated German, thrown amongst us at the beginning of 
our summer season, and notwithstanding he worked within doors 
and was not exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather, we find him 
taking yellow fever in its hemorrhagic form at a very early date- 
he having been sick two days before he entered the hospital. 
"We next come to the case of Andreas Benz-German-in 
America three years-in New Orleans three weeks-last from 
Louisville, Ky. This man is a carpenter by trade, and was last at 
work near St. Mary's Market-entered ward 23 on 19th June-had 
been sick with diarrhoea nineteen days, and entered the ward with 
fever and diarrhoea. Died June 21st. 
"On the same day that Benz entered (June 19th), John Kramer 
entered ward 24. This man was a German-aged 23 years-five 
years in America-six months in New Orleans-common laborer, 
but had been working in Murphy's Hotel, on St. Charles Street 
(next door to the St. Charles Theatre), for two weeks previous to 
being taken sick. He distinctly avowed that he had no communi- 
cation with the shipping. Recovered. 
" These two individuals, then (Benz and Kramer), are found enter- 
ing the hospital on the same day--one from a carpenter's shop near 
St. Mary's Market (one of the filthiest portions of the city), the 
other from St. Charles Street, in the very heart of the city, and 
where most attention is paid to cleanliness. Both were strictly un- 
acclimated; one in the city but three weeks, the other six months. 
"Next comes Edward Tilden-Irishman-has been in America 
nine years, but has never resided in New Orleans-has been run- 
ning to and from the city on steamboats for several years-entered 
ward 25 on June 20th, having been taken sick four days previously 
(16th)-was taken sick on his boat and went thence to a boarding- 
house on Levee Street. It is thus seen that Tilden was one of the 
1 The patient being a stranger in the city, could, not tell us the name of the street 
on which Weber keeps his saloon, though he says it is not near the shipping; and. 
we have failed to find it in the City Directory. 18 
first taken sick, he being only three days behind our first patient, 
Draugod. 
''Three days now elapse, and on the 23d June we find the man 
Philip Lyskchyler entering ward 22, with an intense attack of yellow 
fever, which terminates fatally on the morning of the 24th. He is 
a German-direct from Havre, on ship Rome,1 and has been in New 
Orleans but three weeks-has been working on the levee, near post 
24-taken sick three days before he came in, or on the 20th June. 
"Next comes George Weintz-German-entered ward 22 on the 
20th June. He is, also, from ship Rome (emigrant), and says he 
knew Lyskchyler well-has been sick twenty-four hours-is from 
a boarding-house near St. Mary's Market-has been doing nothing 
since his arrival in this city-merely lounging about his boarding- 
house. Recovered. 
"These two men (Lyskchyler and Weintz) were also wholly un- 
acclimated, having been in New Orleans but three weeks. The 
former was laboring on the levee in the sun, the other was under 
shelter and doing nothing; yet both took the disease. 
"We now come to Maria Shualtz, who was brought to the hos- 
pital in a hopeless condition on the morning of the 25th June. She 
could give no account of herself, but her friend says she is a native 
of Germany-has been in New Orleans eight months-is from the 
corner of Claiborne and Poet Streets (Third District, and far back 
from the river), and was taken sick on 22d June. This patient came 
from a locality far removed from any of the other cases, and a great 
distance back from the river, and, consequently, from the shipping. 
"Lastly, we have the man Joel Shoemaker-native of Ohio-in 
New Orleans six months, though recently returned from a visit to 
Ohio-lives in Lafayette, at a hotel near the Stock Landing-enter- 
ed ward on afternoon of 25th June, and died 2d July. This man 
and Maria Shualtz entered the hospital on the same day-both 
intensely attacked-yet coming from opposite ends of the city, and 
one from the river bank, the other from the rear of the city. 
1 We are indebted, to Dr. Fenner, of this city, for the following notes in relation 
to ship Rome, he having visited her in person: " Ship Rome, Capt. Moulton- 
American vessel-arrived from Havre direct on 3d June, 1855-was hailed at qua- 
rantine, June 2d, examined and passed-brought but little cargo and 162 German 
emigrants-had little sickness at sea, and this confined to children, seven of whom 
died. Most of the emigrants left for St. Louis, June 4th. Capt. M. has now but 
one man on board-no sickness, and has heard of none in the neighborhood of his 
vessel. Ship Rome lies at post 24. about three squares above St. Mary's Market." 19 
"The data being now furnished, it remains for those who preach 
the doctrine of the importation of yellow fever into New Orleans 
to make out their case. We cannot close, however, without annex- 
ing a summary of two cases which we regard as closely allied to 
the subject: they will speak for themselves:- 
"June 15th. Pan Mordin-Swede-entered ward 17-he is a 
clerk-last from Chicago-five months in New Orleans. This man 
was entirely delirious, and presented all the symptoms of delirium 
tremens-fever arose on the day after his admission, and on the 19th 
he died of as pure black vomit as was ever seen. 
"June 17th. Herman Ferringer-German-aged 20 years-last 
from Chicago-in New Orleans six months-entered ward 22- 
occupation, brewer-presented all the symptoms of "pernicious 
intermittent fever," but died on the 19th with some symptoms of 
yellow fever-so decided as to lead to the prediction that black 
vomit would be found in the stomach after death. The autopsy 
revealed genuine black vomit in the stomach. 
" Health of our City-July 25th, 1855.-The 25th of July 
has arrived, and we find ourselves again called on to render an 
account of the doings of disease in our city during the past month. 
Our last report was anything but a flattering one, and we had hoped 
to be able, this time, to present our readers a more agreeable pic- 
ture. To some extent these hopes have been realized, though there 
is nothing in our existing condition which can be construed into 
cause for self-gratulation. Our last report showed us to be just 
emerging from an epidemic of cholera, which had, in a few short 
weeks, killed near eight hundred of our citizens, in addition to a 
large mortality by other diseases. Since the issue of that report, 
the number of deaths by this disease have gradually declined, until 
it has almost disappeared-there being but 8 deaths reported for 
the week ending July 22d. In our last issue, however, we an- 
nounced the appearance of yellow fever here by reports of ten un- 
doubted cases which had been seen in the Charity Hospital. Since 
that time the disease has steadily increased, until for the week end- 
ing July 22d we notice 119 deaths from yellow fever alone. Up 
to the present time the total number of deaths by this disease re- 
ported is 201-to July 1st, 6; for week ending July 8th, 32; for 
week ending 15th, 44; and for week ending 22d, 119. 
" Concerning the origin of this disease for the present season we 
have treated elsewhere. So far as we are capable of determining, 
there appears to be nothing approaching a uniform type; we have 20 
noticed all grades, from that which is so mild as to be difficult of 
diagnosis, to that which partakes of the true congestive nature, and 
kills within forty-eight hours. So far, we are satisfied that fully 
nine-tenths of those attacked are recently (within nine months) from 
a cold climate; a large number are recent emigrants, and a number 
are foreigners who have been living in the Northern or Western 
States, who have recently come to the city, and among these we 
notice by far the greatest mortality in proportion to the number 
attacked. The cause of this we leave for others to determine, 
though we are inclined to attribute it to the irregular habits of the 
individuals-they, by their own confessions, proving the irresistible 
impulse of every Western young man to " get on a spree" as soon 
as he lands at our wharves, and an attack of yellow fever based on 
intoxication is about as little amenable to treatment as a patient in 
the collapse stage of cholera. 
" One very important point we have noticed in connection with 
the yellow fever in existence here, is that quite a number of persons 
have been attacked by the disease within three to six days after 
their arrival in the city. This certainly tends to show that the 
existing fever cause, be it what it may, has acquired considerable 
potency. 
" It is not for us to speculate on the future; we have, as jour- 
nalists, to deal only with facts; so far, however, we think we may 
safely say that we will be spared a re-enactment of the scenes of 
1853. For the week ending July 23d, 1853, the number of deaths 
by yellow fever alone was 429 ; while for the corresponding week 
of this year we have but 119. This difference may be in some 
degree the result of a deficiency of material, but it cannot be 
altogether so ; the fever-producer must be less powerful than it was 
then. 
"We have noticed a fact this season, which, although nothing 
new, is certainly very interesting. Several persons who passed 
safely through the epidemics of 1853 and 1854, and were then unac- 
climated, have had the disease severely within the past three weeks. 
One man is worthy of especial notice in this place. He acted as 
nurse in the hospital during the summers of 1853 and 1854, and 
passed unscathed; and this season the poor fellow died of black 
vomit on the fifth day of the disease." 
Yellow fever steadily increased until the week ending the 19th 
of August, during which week the number of deaths from this 
disease alone amounted to 394. From that time it declined in the 21 
same regular order that it followed when on the increase: thus 
weekly, 357, 301, 255, 150, 89, which was the week ending Sep- 
tember 23d. 
As our Board of Health publishes only the weekly number of 
deaths, without giving the list of diseases, we are not able to make 
up any statistics from the general mortality of the city. All we 
can do in this way must be obtained from the records of the Charity 
Hospital. The following table will show the relative proportion of 
the different types of fever admitted into that Institution during 
this year. 
Table showing the number of Fever Cases of all kinds admitted monthly into 
the New Orleans Charity Hospital during the year 1855; also, the ad- 
missions for all diseases during the same period. 
1855. 
FEVERS. 
January. 
February. 
March. 
April. 
May. 
June. 
July. 
August. 
September. 
October. 
November. 
December. 
3 
O 
Intermittent 
162 
145 
101 
137 
153 
215 
176 
128 
180 
305 
290 
238 
2230 
Remit, bilious 
18 
20 
17 
14 
62 
77 
65 
36 
29 
42 
36 
17 
433 
Continued 
2 
1 
3 
1 
2 
2 
1 
2 
1 
4 
19 
Typhoid 
38 
23 
9 
13 
33 
37 
19 
14 
28 
21 
13 
19 
267 
Typhus 
10 
7 
6 
3 
5 
6 
3 
1 
1 
1 
1 
44 
Congestive 
... 
2 
1 
... 
2 
5 
Ephemeral 
3 
i 
i 
1 
1 
1 
• •• 
3 
11 
Pernicious 
4 
2 
3 
2 
5 
4 
2 
1 
7 
i 
31 
Scarlet 
5 
i 
1 
2 
... 
... 
9 
Chagres 
1 
... 
i 
... 
1 
3 
Rheumatic 
4 
5 
2 
... 
... 
... 
11 
Catarrhal 
2 
4 
2 
1 
... 
1 
1 
11 
Nervous 
1 
1 
2 
i 
... 
5 
Puerperal 
1 
i 
2 
Hectic 
2 
... 
2 
Yellow 
1 
34 
586 
1072 
400 
72 
ii 
5 
2181 
All fevers 
251 
208 
144 
177 
260 
377 
857 
1257 
642 
449 
357 
284 
5264 
All diseases 
1208 
744 
766 
743 
957 
1002 1370 
1 
1643 
1085 
699 
862 
843 12192 
I 
Then, again, it will be seen that nearly half the cases admitted 
into the hospital this year were fevers, and of these, nearly half 
were intermittent. During the three months that yellow fever pre- 
vailed epidemically, there was one-fourth as many cases admitted 
of intermittent and remittent fevers. 
These facts, I think, tend to show the intimate relationship be- 
tween intermittent, remittent, and yellow fever, and more especially 
so when we see these different types intermingled or combined in 
the same subject, as we sometimes do. Thus, a person may be 22 
attacked with intermittent and die with yellow fever, or be attacked 
with yellow fever, which will terminate as a plain intermittent. 
Dr. J. C. Nott, of Mobile, maintains that these fevers are entirely 
distinct diseases, originating from different causes. He admits that 
they may prevail at the same time and place, and even make a 
simultaneous attack on a person; but when this is the case, he 
says, the result is a "hybrid disease," partaking of the nature of 
both types, either of which may gain ascendence in the course of 
the attack. But to my mind, it is more rational to view them as 
varieties of disease, springing from a common remote cause, which 
may be modified by various attendant circumstances in the earth, 
air, and human constitution, and thus produce a corresponding 
variety of effects. I am sorry it is not in my power at present to 
discuss this question farther. 
The total mortality for the year in New Orleans was 10,096, of 
which there died of yellow fever 2,598. The epidemic ran its 
course, and ceased long before the appearance of frost, though 
sporadic cases continued to appear until late in December, as usual. 
The unquestionable domestic origin of this epidemic (no person 
pretending to trace it to a foreign source), together with the great 
expense and inconvenience of quarantine, caused the people to cry 
aloud for the repeal of the law at the next session of the Legislature, 
which met in January, 1856. A strong effort was made to accom- 
plish this, but it failed, and quarantine is still enforced at the station 
on the river, 70 miles below the city. The original opponents of 
quarantine are unwilling to have the law repealed too soon, prefer- 
ring, since so much money has been expended on the establishment, 
to have it kept up until all are convinced of its utter futility, at 
least as a protection against yellow fever. Perhaps when this result 
is brought about, the people may be willing to resort to more 
rational measures for getting clear of this pestilence. 
PATHOLOGY AND TREATMENT OF YELLOW FEVER. 
I know of no discovery made in the pathology of this disease in 
this city since my last report; but the January and April numbers 
of the Medico-Chirurgical Review contain a report on the yellow 
fever of Demarara, by Dr. Daniel Blair, Surgeon-General of British 
Guiana, which shows that some important discoveries have been 
made recently. I shall endeavor to test these discoveries as soon 
as opportunity offers. 23 
In respect to treatment, I feel authorized to say, the general opinion 
of the profession in this region now is, that we have hitherto been 
giving too much medicine in yellow fever; in other words, we have 
been taking it out of the hands of nature, and trying too hard to 
cure it; whereas, all that seems necessary to be done is to assist 
nature in her conflict with the febrific cause. What this cause is 
we know not, but it is evidently something that seriously disturbs 
the most important vital functions of the system, and is very liable 
to cause death. In fatal cases, we generally observe before death an 
arrest or cessation of the functions performed by the great excretory 
or depurative organs, the liver, kidneys, and skin, also hemorrhages 
from various parts of the body, as the nose, gums, stomach, bowels, 
uterus, bladder, eyes, ears, scrotum, and any excoriated surface; 
likewise, serious disturbance of the brain and nervous system gene- 
rally. After death, we find the liver generally of the color of ground 
mustard, frequently dry, though sometimes engorged with blood, 
and generally displaying but little or no bile in the pori; we find 
the skin nearly always yellow; we find the stomach most generally 
containing effused blood, commonly called black vomit, the mucous 
membrane thickened and softened, occasionally abraded or broken, 
sometimes red and engorged with blood, sometimes pale and ane- 
mic; we find similar appearances in the mucous membrane of the 
intestinal canal; we seldom find much alteration of the kidneys ; 
we often find sanguineous engorgement of the brain and spinal 
marrow, with serous effusion under the arachnoid membrane; we 
sometimes find ecchymoses and gangrenous spots on the surface of 
the body and extremities ; and we frequently find the blood of nor- 
mal color, consistence, and coagulability, though the late researches 
of Dr. Blair demonstrate that very material alterations of the blood 
are often observed in the latter stages of yellow fever, and soon 
after death. 
Now, supposing a cadaver presenting most or all of these appear- 
ances were laid before an educated pathologist, without giving him 
any history of the case, or any clue whatever to the place of its oc- 
currence : would he be able therefrom to form a correct idea of the 
nature and symptoms attending the disease, or the length of time it 
had taken to cause the fatal result ? I am inclined to think he 
would not; and if so, does it not admonish us that we may have 
been accustomed to attach too much importance to post-mortem exa- 
minations, and to hope for more benefit from them than we had 
any right to expect ? In the dead body we see not the disease, but 24 
merely its effects-its ravages on the human frame. Nor can we de- 
rive from this source alone, at least in the instance before us, any 
valuable suggestions in regard to its proper treatment, or the reme- 
dies that may be the most useful. We must study more carefully 
the nature of the disease during life, and the effect of remedies upon 
it. What remedy of generally admitted value, I would ask, have 
we been led to adopt by our discoveries in the dead-house ? Not 
one, that I know of I 
And now let us see what takes place in cases that progress favor- 
ably and terminate in recovery. 
The attack is marked by more or less chilliness, very soon fol- 
lowed by burning fever, with flushed face, injected eyes, severe 
pain in the head, back and limbs, and frequently nausea and vomit- 
ing. The head and stomach symptoms, when violent, are readily 
relieved by local depletion, the patient is easily thrown into copious 
perspiration by means of the mustard foot-bath and a cup of warm 
tea, and the bowels are readily evacuated by purgative medicines. 
If the patient now remains quietly in bed and avoids every kind 
of imprudence, the fever will run through its natural course in 
about three days; the functions of the great excretory organs, skin, 
liver, and kidneys, will be performed without interruption, and usu- 
ally, at the close of the third day of sickness the disease will come 
to a crisis and cease, leaving the patient very much prostrated. 
As the critical stage approaches, we frequently observe more or 
less hemorrhage from the nose, gums, or uterus. This is but a 
short description of an ordinary mild case of yellow fever, one that 
calls for very little medical aid. 
A majority of such cases would probably get well by the efforts 
of nature alone, if the patient would stay in bed four days covered 
with a blanket and drink some diaphoretic tea. But the picture 
will be quite different if the onus of disease should fall upon some 
particular part, or the function of any or all the excretory organs 
should be arrested. Then will arise a necessity for medical aid 
which must be promptly and skilfully applied, else death will be 
inevitable. But the question is, what constitutes the disease ? or 
what actually takes place in the system when a person is attacked 
with yellow fever, passes through all its stages and recovers ? This 
is a problem that has never yet been satisfactorily explained, yet we 
should not despair of accomplishing its solution at some time or 
other. Dr. Blair says, in the paper before alluded to, "that the 
test-tube and microscope are as necessary for the correct diagnosis 25 
and prognosis of yellow fever, as the stethoscope and pleximeter 
for diseases of the chest." Yet the information to be obtained through 
these instruments is just beginning to be made known to the pro- 
fession at large. I am convinced that with proper means for 
investigation we may expect to obtain a great deal more knowledge 
of the nature and treatment of yellow fever by examining the blood 
and secretions during the life of the patient, than from the body 
after death. But I am compelled for want of time to dismiss the 
further consideration of the subject at present. 
The very best treatment for yellow fever is far from being agreed 
upon as yet; and the great diversity of practice that is pursued, in- 
dicates plainly that the disease is not yet well understood. As before 
remarked, the experience of the last two or three years, in this re- 
gion, seems to have led to the adoption of a milder course of practice 
than was formerly pursued; but the fell destroyer still claims its 
host of victims, in spite of potent drug or magic skill. We have 
as yet discovered no specific for yellow fever, and are left to treat it 
on general principles, aided by the lights of experience. In 1854, 
the discovery of a grand specific was publicly announced to the 
world by two of the physicians of Savannah, Georgia, Drs. Wild- 
man and Harris. This was the muriated tincture of iron, in doses of 
twenty to sixty drops every two hours. But, after a few short weeks 
of evanescent celebrity, its boldest advocate, Dr. Wildman, was swept 
off by the pestilence, and the remedy was soon consigned to the tomb 
of oblivion. I am by no means sure, however, that this stern decree 
was not both precipitate and unjust. From the highly laudatory 
accounts of the remedy that were published in the Savannah papers, 
and after being assured that the physicians who recommended it 
were respectable gentlemen, I was induced to give it a trial in our 
Charity Hospital. My first experiments were so satisfactory, that I 
not only continued its use there, but also in private practice, and 
with results much more satisfactory than I should have anticipated 
from the before-known action of the medicine, and the diseases and 
states of the system for which it had commonly been prescribed. 
The course I pursued was, first, to evacuate the bowels with castor 
oil, or some other mild purgative, and then commence with the 
tincture of iron, in doses of twenty drops, diluted with a little cold 
water, every two hours. Contrary to what I should have expected, 
the effect of the medicine was to gradually reduce the febrile excite- 
ment, and lessen the headache, to allay thirst, induce sleep, and 
cause a free secretion of urine. It sometimes constipated the 26 
bowels, but this was easily obviated by mild purgatives. At other 
times it disagreed with the stomach, and had to be discontinued ; 
but, for the most part, the effects of the remedy were entirely satis- 
factory, and I think it deserves a farther trial by the profession. 
Drs. Harris and W ildman were induced to resort to this medicine 
as a remedy for yellow fever, by witnessing its beneficial effects in 
erysipelas and scarlatina, supposing there was some analogy in the 
three diseases. 
I will here close my remarks on the yellow fever of New Orleans 
during the last two years, regretting my inability, for want of leisure, 
to do anything like justice to the subject. I particularly regret not 
being able to discuss more fully the questions of the origin and in- 
fectiousness of the disease; but these questions are referred to in 
most of the contributions that are to follow, and the reader will 
have an opportunity to see what others think of them as well as 
myself. In the report of Dr. Barton, that comes next, will be found 
an investigation into the atmospheric and terrene conditions, accom- 
panying the origin and prevalence of both yellow fever and cholera, 
which is well worthy of perusal. It is not my business to pass 
judgment on the value of Dr. Barton's laborious researches into the 
causation of epidemics. I hope the reader will examine them care- 
fully, and award them the merit they deserve. 
Epidemic Cholera.-This disease has prevailed in New Orleans, 
and at several places in the interior, on different occasions during 
both of the last two years, but is evidently gradually disappearing. 
At this present writing (June, 1856), we have quite a prevalence of 
diarrhoea, some few cases, when neglected, running into distinct 
cholera, with cramps, and rice-water stools. I think it is the last 
expiring effort of the grand epidemic that broke out here in De- 
cember, 1848. We may now hope for a cessation of this epidemic 
during the next ten years. 27 
APPENDIX. 
I.- Quarantine and yellow fever at Natchez during 1853-54 and '5b : 
the futility of the former and the local origin of the latter conclusively 
shown; and admitted for 1855, by the most strenuous advocates of the 
one, and the most ardent disbelievers of the other. By C. H. Stone, 
M. D., of Natchez.1 
To begin with the year 1855. Quarantine was established on the 
19th July, and the station fixed four miles below the city. The 
health of the people continued good, with the exception to be 
stated; no deaths from disease having occurred for four or five 
weeks. 
On the 4th September, the Board of Health published the follow- 
ing information for the people. 
"To the Board of Health. 
Gentlemen : I have the pleasure of reporting our city remark- 
ably healthy ; we have had no infectious diseases, and fewer cases 
of the bilious remittent and intermittent fevers than I have ever 
known. There is no sickness at the quarantine station; I think 
the indications are clear that we shall have a very healthy season. 
Yours, respectfully, 
L. P. BLACKBURN." 
Natchez, September 3d, 1855. 
1 This paper is taken from the New Orleans Medical News and Hospital Gazette, 
for Nov. 1855, and contains the substance of a communication to me which was in- 
tended for the report I expected to make last year. Dr. Stone is one of the most 
respectale physicians in the south, and his statements are entitled to all confidence. 
He demonstrates the local origin of yellow fever in Natchez as plainly as Dr. Barton 
and I have down in New Orleans ; he also shows how little benefit has been derived 
from quarantine; but he omits to notice the spread of the disease in the country 
back of Natchez, within the last two or three years, so much like measles, scar- 
latina, and hooping-cough. 
Dr. Stone's paper is a valuable one. E. D. F. 28 
On the 6th September, the following card, dated the 5th, was 
published. 
" The undersigned, practising physicians of Natchez, deem it 
their duty to state, that within a few weeks, several cases of yellow 
fever have occurred in this city; some of which have recovered, 
others have died, and at this time, there are other cases existing. 
W. HARPER, 
W. L. JONES, 
C. H. STONE, 
JNO. C. INGE, 
H. LYLE." 
On the 8th September, the Board of Health met, and the following 
was the result of their labors. 
City Hall, September 8th, 1855. 
" At a called meeting of the Board of Health, held this day at 3 
o'clock, P. M.: Present, R. W. Wood, Esq., Mayor; Dr. L. P. 
Blackburn, Health Officer; Messrs. Burns and Doniphan 
The following report of Dr. Blackburn was submitted, which, on 
motion of Mr. Doniphan, was adopted. 
"To the Board of Health of the City of Natchez. 
Gentlemen :-It becomes my painful duty to announce to you 
the existence o/yellow fever in our city. 
Yours respectfully, 
L. P. BLACKBURN, 
Health Officer." 
The following preamble and resolution of Mr. Doniphan was, on 
motion of Dr. Blackburn, unanimously adopted :- 
" The City Council, with commendable diligence, as soon as yellow 
fever was announced in New Orleans, established, and have con- 
tinued to enforce rigidly, the quarantine laws against all boats and 
their passengers from infected ports, and have also had an armed 
guard on the roads leading to the city, as well as a secret police 
officer to detect infractions of the law, and have done everything in 
their power to keep Natchez free from exotic yellow fever; not- 
withstanding all which it is in our midst, and threatens to become 
epidemic: 
" Therefore Resolved, That the yellow fever now existing among 
us, is a visitation of an all-wise Providence, against which the most 29 
j udicious human efforts have been unavailing, and while we deplore 
the fact, we feel it our duty to make it known to our citizens, that 
they may take such measures to avoid the infected atmosphere as 
they may deem advisable. 
" Resolved, That the proceedings of this Board be published in 
handbill form, and posted on the streets, and also inserted in the 
papers on Tuesday. On motion, the Board then adjourned. 
W. H. STEWARD, 
Secretary of the Board of Healths 
Now for the origin of this yellow fever:-■ 
First Locality.-The first cases that came under my notice, were 
in the family of Mr. J. D. Shields-his wife, four children, and five 
servants, and the first no doubt in the city, as follows: August 
17th, Bayard Shields, aged 6 years; 17th, Charles, servant, aged 8 
years; 19th, Mary, servant, aged 11 years; 19th, Joe, servant, aged 
50 years; 20th, Mrs. Shields; 20th, Dunbar Shields, aged 13 years; 
21st, Barthena, servant, aged 14 years; 21st, Abijah Shields, aged 
2 years; and on the 22d, Sye, servant, aged 25 years. 
Before these cases occurred, I had once visited Wintz, a servant, 
35 years, on the 8th August, then sick one or two days. She had 
had yellow fever in 1853, and I saw nothing peculiar in her attack 
this year. On the 12th August, Judy, 8 years, was taken sick, and 
on the 14th, Mary, 40 years, servant. I did not see these cases, 
but Mrs. Shields, who has had much experience in southern fevers, 
assures me that the attacks of Wintz and Mary were exactly like 
each other, and different from all the rest; and that Judy's was as 
much unlike these, as precisely similar to Bayard's and the others. 
The reason for thus stating these three cases, will be apparent in 
the sequel. Up to the 15th October, these persons have remained 
free from diseases. 
It is well to state here, that Mrs. Dr. Chamberlain, and Mrs. Gab. 
B. Shields, both living in the country, had attacks of yellow fever 
after visiting Mrs. Shields' residence; the former remaining there 
36 hours, and the latter being there several times. 
On the 22d August, a case occurred at Mr. J. Bradley's, adjoining 
Mr. Shields. 
On the 23d August, Mr. Skinner, and on the 26th, Mr. Knicker- 
bocker (both residing at Mr. Walworth's, also adjoining Mr. Shields), 
and on the 26th, Mr. Walworth's servant, Mark, had attacks. Mr. 30 
Walworth's family were absent, and his servants, excepting Mark 
and one other, were protected persons. 
The residences of Shields, Bradley, and Walworth, are on a high, 
dry, and clear ridge, one-third of a mile northeast from Main Street, 
or the centre of the city, and are the only ones on twenty or more 
acres of land. 
Second Locality.-On the 19th August, occurred the case of Ken- 
nedy, an Irishman, laboring in a brick-yard, one third of a mile 
southwest from the city, and living in the Lancaster Row, on the 
second square southwest from the centre of the city, and one-third 
of a mile from the first locality. On the 25th, Kennedy's mother, 
living in the same house, was attacked. 
Third Locality.-The first case under Dr. Harper was on the 20th 
August-Greeincher, near the Cotton-press, and near the river, and 
one mile north from the centre of the city, and half a mile north 
from the first locality. 
Fourth Locality.-The first cases under Dr. Lyle, were on the 
21st August-George, a young man, living with Crone and Swarty, 
on Main Street, in the centre of the city; on the 24th August, Mrs. 
Staniforth, living three squares east from Main Street, and centre 
of the city; on 27th August, Boas and his wife, living one square 
from Main Street, quarter of a mile southwest from centre of the 
city, and within two squares of Kennedy's, or the second locality, 
one-third of a mile from the first locality, also, a third of a mile 
from Mrs. Staniforth's, and one mile from the third locality. 
No doubt, other cases occurred at or near these dates, and at 
other points of the city, I mention but one very probable one. It 
was called, before death, by Dr. Davis, "Typhus Stupidus," and 
was reported in the papers as dead on 31st August, of "Typhus"- 
" Stupidus" being left off, and Icterodes not being added. 
The cases under Drs. Harper, Lyle, and myself had no commu- 
nication with each other-with steamers or with goods, wares, or 
merchandise from infected districts, of which there was but one in 
the South at the time. But those at Mr. Shields', and the outbreak 
of the disease in the city, have been attributed by some to one 
change of clothing worn by Mr. S., while remaining forty-eight hours 
between the 30th July and 1st August, on the wharf-boat at the 
quarantine station, where, at that time and before, there had not 
been a single case of the disease!!! 
Let me see. Wintz took the soiled clothing from Mr. Shields' 31 
carpet bag, threw them in. the sun, and they remained exposed in 
the open air all night. 
Mary washed them the next day, August 2d. Wintz, who had 
had yellow fever in 1853 was side on the 8th. Judy, who had not 
touched the clothes, on the 12th, and Mary on the 14th. If Wintz 
and Mary, or Mary only, alone received the yellow fever from these 
clothes from touching them, so did Judy without doing so, and Mr. 
Shields should have been the first case. 
Whether Mr. Shields had any attack I am not disposed to assert 
or deny. He was suffering on the 21st and 22d August, in the 
manner that Dr. Lewis, of Mobile, describes as sometimes happen- 
ing, and very much as Mr. Elliot, whose case is to be mentioned as 
one of Mr. Pearsall's attendants, and moreover, he has remained 
free from attack to the present writing, 15th October. If Wintz 
had a second attack, Mary, far more probably, had a first one. If 
Wintz and Mary had yellow fever, Judy, most certainly, had the 
same, which fixes the dates of the first cases, on the 6th or 7th of 
August for Wintz-on 12th for Judy; and on the 14th for Mary. 
But it is of small moment about these cases and dates. 
The disease was in Mr. Shields' family most clearly on the 17th 
August, and the question is, was the poison or contagion of yellow 
fever conveyed to his house in a two foot carpet bag, containing one 
change of soiled clothes, and a few clean ones; and again, how did 
this virulent contagion get into the carpet bag ? As many people 
believe in this power of yellow fever contagion, now that their fear 
of the disease has been wrought to such tension, I propose to show 
that the thing is simply impossible. The evidence given must dis- 
pel any such idea from the minds of all, here or elsewhere. 
The yellow fever was said to have been introduced into the 
Island of Boa Vista, one of the Cape de Verdes, by the British 
Steamship Eclair in 1845. Dr. McWilliam was directed to inquire 
into it, and in his report makes the following statement: Twelve 
bags of soiled clothing were landed on the 21st August, and dis- 
tributed to seventeen washerwomen on the next day. The testi- 
mony respecting the periods of attack of thirteen of them, was 
taken in April 1846, four having died, but of what disease or when 
taken sick, nothing is said. The names are omitted here, though 
given in the report. 
No. 1. Had fever late in December. 
No. 2. Had fever late in January. 
No. 3. Was sick after No. 1. 32 
No. 4. Had fever in January, her mother, father, and two bro- 
thers were taken first. 
No. 5. Not sick until lately (near April, 1846). 
No. 6. Never had fever. 
No. 7. Taken about 20th October. 
No. 8. Does not know the exact time, but not till Mary had died. 
No. 9. Had not the fever until after her husband, who was at- 
tacked after the fever became general. 
No. 10. Never had the fever. 
No. 11. Had fever about the same time with the rest of the 
family. 
No. 12. Had fever after her brother, who died some time in No- 
vember. 
No. 13. Was never attacked till January. 
If such be the result, actually nothing, from washing, what may 
be reasonably calculated for seventeen women at a thousand, not to 
say one thousand seven hundred pieces, and these, from a ship in 
the tropics reeking with African yellow fever; how much New 
Orleans yellow fever ought to have been carried into the city of 
Natchez by one change in a two foot carpet bag, which remained 
two days on a wharf-boat at the Natchez quarantine station, where 
there had not been one case of that disease ? Certainly, less than 
none! But, perhaps, by certain shakes, up, down, horizontal, the 
potency of nothing was exalted to the thirtieth degree, and the 
spiritualized attenuation received in infinitesimal doses sufficed to do 
the deed. An example of much from nothing, in which some people 
are found to believe. I hope my friend Mr. Shields, will in future 
shake his bag less potently, or perhaps better reverse his shakes. 
1853. It has been said that the epidemic of 1853 was owing to 
the introduction of the case of Mr. Pearsall, who came from New 
Orleans ill of the disease, and died at the Mansion House, on the 
17th July. 
Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Davis make this statement, and I offer the 
following proof that it is not true; nor is it true that Murray, who 
came home on the day of quarantine being established, ill of the 
disease, and died on the 26th July, caused the epidemic. 
The first cases of that year, were as follows:- 
The first on the 14th July, a foreigner, who arrived in New 
Orleans on the 13th or 14th of June, where he remained four or 
five days, and reached this place on the 20th. He either contracted 33 
the disease here, or his case shows a period of incubation of twenty- 
six days. 
The second on the 15th; third on 26th; fourth on 25th; fifth on 
27th; sixth, Larry Curtiss, on 31st July or 1st August, a barkeeper 
in Mansion House, and one of Pearsall's visitors; the seventh on 2d 
August, whose arrival, stay and departure from New Orleans, and 
arrival here, were the same as the first case. The periods of incu- 
bation for her, will be forty-three days, or she received the disease 
here. 
These cases, except the first and seventh, were far removed from 
each other, and all except Curtiss, were on different squares from 
the Mansion House. 
A man, I believe a barkeeper, died at the Mansion on the 2d of 
August, from falling over the banisters while in delirium from 
drink. 
Dr. Lyle states, that his first case was on the 16th July, and from 
the 17th, " almost every case assumed that form." 
I give the following account of the attendants and visitors of 
Mr. Pearsall, which I have every reason to believe constitutes the 
whole truth. 
Mr. Hugh Elliot was more constantly with him than any other 
person, Gus excepted. About the middle of August (about twenty- 
eight days from the 17th July), Mr. E. was confined to his bed for 
four or five hours, felt badly for three or four days after, and has 
had no other sickness since, though exposed during the remainder 
of that and to the 15th October of this year. The disease was 
very generally prevailing before his attack. 
Gus belongs to Capt. Knight, who says that he has never had 
yellow fever. 
There were two barbers to shave him, but of these I can learn 
nothing, as they are not in the city. 
Mr. J. R. Mitchell did not have yellow fever till 1854, and then 
in New Orleans. 
Larry Curtiss, who Mr. Elliot shows was in the room at the seal- 
ing of the coffin, but does not remember to have been there at other 
times, was attacked on July 31st or August 1st. 
Dr. L. P. Blackburn was his attending physician, and does not 
admit that he has ever had yellow fever. 
I have been unable to learn that other persons were in his room, 
except Dr. Lyle. 
If the preceding evidence be not sufficient to show that Pearsall's 34 
case had no agency in the production of the epidemic, of which 
cases began before his, I am thrown under the necessity of denying 
almost that we had any epidemic at all; certainly not till thirty or 
forty days after his death, and then to have begun in the usual 
mode: cases here and there become more and more numerous till 
prevailing generally. This has usually taken several weeks, and 
would carry us into the middle or last week of October. At this 
date, the epidemic of 1855 is nearly at an end, perhaps only for 
want of subjects. And I prove this position in this wise. After 
the announcement by the city authorities as advised by me, then 
health officer, that an epidemic was impending over us (for which 
I was bitterly abused for a week), Dr. Blackburn for about two 
weeks, and Dr. Davis for three or four days, denied that there was 
any yellow fever in the city; forty days (quarantine number), at 
least having elapsed since Pearsall's case according to the former, 
and thirty or more days according to the latter authority, and no 
disease resulting till the middle of October-that is, provided these 
two authorities were not mistaken in 1853, as they were in 1848 
and in 1855. I think it more than the people care to believe, or 
have bargained for, that one or two cases can cause an epidemic 
thirty or forty days after introduction. This is like running ahead 
of the fox. 
In 1854, Dr. Blackburn being health officer, quarantine was 
established on the 25th August, long after yellow fever was known 
to exist in New Orleans. It was discontinued on the 21st October, 
while the disease was still in New Orleans, and goods in that city 
of necessity more imbued with the poison or contagion, and while 
he disease was known to be in Vicksburg in an increasing degree, 
and springing up in various parts of the South. 
This statement shows the supreme absurdity of that quarantine. 
Cases of yellow fever occurred in my practice between the 12th 
and 26th August, and between the 9th and 15th October. Dr. Lyle 
had cases under his care, and Dr. C. L. Smith had one case. These, 
in all, about fifteen, were of local origin. Dr. Holcombe may have 
contracted the disease in Natchez, or at Lambdin's, six miles below 
the city, in Louisiana, where it was said that yellow fever pre- 
vailed, but denied by some, for the very insufficient reason of its 
mildness. 
That his case was yellow fever, was the opinion of Drs. Lyle, 
Davis, Fortu, and the writer. It was called dengue by one physi- 
cian, and all were denied by Dr. Blackburn to be yellow fever. 35 
Besides these cases, one was introduced which calls for all the at- 
tention of the people. It is the case of Mr. Poque, a Kentucky 
trader, who contracted the disease, most probably elsewhere, and 
was treated by Dr. Blackburn in this city. That Poque had yellow 
fever, is susceptible of full proof. 
If Pearsall's case gave an epidemic in 1853, why did not Poque's 
in 1854? 
I have a few words to say respecting errors promulgated with 
great zeal, about the disease and quarantine during years preceding 
these three. Judge Dubuisson, July, 1845, teaches the Mayor and 
Selectmen, and the pupils of the Institute, that "the quarantine has 
been imposed seven times, to wit: in 1841, 1842, 1843, 1817, 1848, 
1853, and 1854, with complete success, except in 1853." 
Drs. Cartwright, McPheeters, Lyle, Jones, Cochran, and Thistle, 
authorized me to publish in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical 
Journal for 1848, that several cases of yellow fever occurred here 
during 1847. 
There were at least fifty or sixty cases, and among them some of 
the most intense I have ever seen. 
Perhaps those physicians knew more about yellow fever than 
Judge Dubuisson, though perhaps the Judge does not think so. 
Respecting 1848, Judge Dubuisson and other medical men, and 
Drs. Blackburn and Davis, denied that the epidemic of that year 
was yellow fever. They called it dengue. Yet Judge D. admitted 
to me, in 1854, that he had an attack of yellow fever that year in 
the city. Dr. Blackburn, also, had an attack of yellow fever that 
year. He was attending Mr. Van Horen, who had black vomit 
within a few hours after. Dr. Jones and I became his physicians, 
which took place because Dr. Blackburn was attacked at this time. 
It was this attack of yellow fever that gave Dr. Blackburn his pro- 
tection against the contagion of Pearsall's case, and against the 
"morbid miasm" from the "three" who died, and the "four" who 
"recovered at the quarantine station" in 1854, and against the "mor- 
bid miasms" of the hundreds he has attended since 1848, and 
against the poison of yellow fever, generated in the city of Natchez 
several times since. Few people now deny that the so-called 
dengue of 1848 was yellow fever. There were about forty deaths, 
with hemorrhages, etc. 
Within ten years we have had three epidemics, and during two 
years only, we have not had some cases according to my observa- 
tion. 36 
Dr. Lyle has been here twenty years, and says that during that 
time, he has seldom failed to see some cases every year. 
Cases of yellow fever occurred in 1854, as in 1848, and in 1853, 
and perhaps in other years before quarantine was established. 
Therefore, it is neither to the discredit nor credit of quarantine, that 
epidemics have or have not happened during those years. But 
this was not the case in 1855. Fortunately, the quarantine was 
established (and was rigidly enforced throughout) several weeks 
before any case of this disease took place-nearly fifty days up to 
the time when the Board of Health, as advised by Dr. B., admitted 
that yellow fever existed in the city. 
The explanation given of all this, and the reason why Poque did not 
cause an epidemic in 1854 is, "that an all-wise Providence did not 
intend us to have an epidemic that year, but did intend it in 1853 
as in 1855." An all-wise Providence no more regards quarantines 
against the indigenous, domestic, local, in a word, against the en- 
demic diseases of a country, than other vain efforts of vain and self 
sufficient man. The Board of Health deserves much credit for the 
graceful and prompt manner in which they admit that in the con- 
test waged with Providence, they have been conquered; and more 
for the admission, so forcibly implied, that in 1854 there could 
have been no contest with Providence-in other words, that " Provi- 
dence did not intend an epidemic that year"-only fifteen or sixteen 
cases of local origin, and one or two imported-otherwise, the 
Board of Health would have come out of the contest, then as now, 
second best-a conclusion which the Board will admit, no doubt. 
Yellow fever is going through one of its grand cycles of increase 
in violence and of extent of territory invaded. It is to be feared 
that we have not seen the end of it yet. The disease has already 
appeared in Baltimore in 1853 and 1854 (there also in 1849); in 
Philadelphia in 1853; in St. Louis in 1854; in Norfolk, Portsmouth, 
Gosport and Memphis in 1855. It will soon be shown that it was 
of land origin in Gosport, as in all the other places named. 
Another cycle began in 1791-3, prevailing more extensively than 
usual in the West Indies and Spain, and for many years, through 
the Northern Atlantic States. Its local origin was well shown in 
six different places during the embargo, and over and over again 
when quarantines were established. 
Another cycle again may be stated in 1817-22, during which 
time, the disease appeared in a great many places, as Philadelphia, 37 
New York, and at Natchez for the first time, epidemically at least, 
and in numerous other places in the United States. 
This periodical increase of the disease in extent of country it 
invades, is the explanation of its communicability by persons, goods, 
carpet bags, etc., so apparent to many, and yet so unreal. 
The poison of yellow fever may be put up or generated in the 
holds of ships, and thus it may be, and often has been transported 
from port to port, or comes from the open ocean into healthy ports, 
giving the disease to those who go on board, or near the ship after 
opening the hatches. Infected ships have long since been known 
to be " floating places of infection." Let them be quarantined, and 
avoided by the unprotected. Let river steamers go with wind sails 
and open hatches, and then fear not to enter the hold, even if they 
started full of an infected atmosphere. It cannot remain against a 
ten knot breeze. 
Thus far, quarantine and no further-for belief in all else is un- 
founded-mere post hoc conclusions, and leads to panics, inhumanity, 
and back to ages of barbarism, and sadly increases the mortality 
from the disease. 
II.-On the Yellow Fever of Woodville, and its vicinity, in the State of 
Mississippi. By Alfred C. Holt, M. D. 
[The letter of Dr. A. C. Holt, on the yellow fever of Woodville, 
Mississippi, and the region around, shows the author to be a man 
of accurate observation and reflection. He stands deservedly high 
as a practitioner, and does an extensive business. He here gives us 
a valuable collection of facts relative to the origin and extension of 
yellow fever, and declares his conviction that under favorable cir- 
cumstances^ this disease may be transported from one place to another, 
regenerate itself, like scarlatina and measles, and be communicated 
from person to person. For myself, I am free to confess that the 
facts presented by Dr. Holt, together with many others of the same 
kind that have come to my knowledge within the last three years, 
in this region, appear to me strongly to support this position. In 
maintaining the opinion that yellow fever is transportable and com- 
municable under favorable circumstances, Dr. Holt says: "It does not 
follow that it may not be of domestic origin whenever causes exist 
favorable to its production." This is a point of equal, if not greater 
importance than the infectiousness of the disease; for we may pos- 
sibly discover the means of preventing the production of yellow 
fever, but if the disease be transportable and communicable, the 38 
only hope of confining it within bounds must rest on the complete 
cessation of all intercommunication during the season of its prevalence. 
Fortunately for mankind, this is not a common, but an extraordi- 
nary feature of the disease, which but rarely occurs. Why it should 
present itself only in some seasons and localities, and not always, 
forms an interesting problem, as I have before remarked. It will 
be seen that two others of my correspondents, Drs. Wood and 
Stone, present some strong proofs of the local origin and non-conta- 
giousness of yellow fever. 
Dr. Holt points out what he considers to be well marked dis- 
tinguishing features between yellow fever and dengue. He looks 
upon them as " distinct diseases," yet he says there is " a striking 
resemblance between them," and even admits that " they probably 
originate from similar causes, but there is wanting some ingredient 
to make them identical." In support of his position, he refers to 
the analogy afforded by chemical isomerism, where the same ele- 
ments, combined in the same proportions, produce substances alto- 
gether different. This is the very analogy reverted to by me about 
nine years ago in support of the opposite conclusion. I do not con- 
tend that bilious fever, dengue and yellow fever are identically the 
same, but that they are varieties of disease springing from the same 
elements differently combined and modified by attending circum- 
stances. They all prevail at the same time and place, and their 
diagnosis has puzzled the most accurate observers. One thing is 
certain-that whenever dengue prevails epidemically, the few fever 
cases that terminate fatally always present the commonly admitted 
signs and appearances of yellow fever, such as black vomit, yellow- 
ness, etc. In this assertion I have been fully supported by Dr. C. H. 
Stone, of Natchez, and Dr. G. A. Ketchum, of Mobile.-E. D. F.] 
Woodville, March. 6th, 1856. 
Dr. E. D. Fenner- 
Dear Sir : At your request, I give you a brief account of yellow 
fever, as it prevailed in this region during the last two or three 
years, and particularly as to " the facts tending to throw light upon 
the question of its origin, whether foreign or domestic." 
The first case of which we have knowledge in 1853, occurred at 
the Woodville Factory, which is situated about a mile south of 
Woodville, in a beach grove and in a locality considered healthy. 
This case was a man named Lee, who had been one of the factory 
operatives. He left the factory late in July, and visited New 39 
Orleans; returning directly thence, he reached the factory on Wed- 
nesday, the 9th August, and died with black vomit the following 
Sunday night, '3 -- 
Though he had a chill soon after his arrival at the factory, Wed- 
nesday evening, yet he left his bed the next morning and walked 
into Woodville, where he remained several hours. 
On the 25th of August, the next case occurred at the factory; on 
the 28th, 29th and 30th, several others were attacked, and during 
the first week of September, the disease became general among the 
factory hands. I could trace no chain from case to case-nearly 
all of them had been in deceased's room during his illness, and at 
the time of his death. 
As a rule, the attacks did not set in with violence-those in 
which this was the case, generally yielded readily to treatment, 
while many of the most formidable cases I encountered commenced 
with seeming mildness, and were attended throughout with little 
suffering. The deaths ordinarily occurred on the fifth and seventh 
days; in fatal cases, delirium, hemorrhages, jaundice and black 
vomit were common. 
On the 26th of August, Alfred, a boy belonging to Dr. Hender- 
son, was taken; on the 31st Dr. H. was attacked, and during the 
next ten days his whole household, numbering nine persons, passed 
through attacks. On the - of August, Major Feltus was taken ill. 
His attack, at the time, was not considered yellow fever, but subse- 
quent events satisfied his physician, Dr. Angell, that it was so. As 
soon as he was able to be removed, he was taken to the country 
with his family, where one of his children had an attack soon after. 
In the cases of Maj. F. and Dr. H.'s boy Alfred, there had been 
no communication with the factory. Dr. H. had been in attendance 
on some of the earliest cases at that place. 
The residences of both these gentlemen are on the southern 
boundary of Woodville, and therefore nearest the factory. 
On the 7th of September, I visited two children at Mr. Noble's, 
about two hundred and fifty yards north of Dr. H.'s. These proved 
to be cases of yellow fever, and I am satisfied had had no commu- 
nication with any other cases. From this time until the 21st, occa- 
sional cases occurred having no traceable connection with each 
other, at which date cases were numerous, and in various parts of 
the village. When the first death after Lee's occurred at the fac- 
tory, many of the citizens of Woodville becoming alarmed, left 
town, leaving something over two hundred unacclimated subjects, 40 
not more than six or eight of whom escaped attacks. As many in- 
stances in which the fever occurred in families in the surrounding 
country contain points of interest, I will detail a few, and in order 
to explain fully the origin of the disease in the family of Mrs. 
McCausland, I give you some extracts from a letter of Mr. J. Scott 
Smith, of West Feliciana, written while the events were all fresh in 
his memory. The letter reads as follows:- 
"Early in September, '53, my nephew, William McDermott, a 
youth about eighteen years old, arrived at my mother's house from 
Arkansas, having landed on his way down at Vicksburg, where he 
spent one night, the yellow fever prevailing at that place at the 
time. 
" lie came thence to Bayou Sara on a boat on which there had 
been cases, and some deaths from yellow fever-remained one night 
in Bayou Sara, the yellow fever prevailing there also, and the next 
day reached our house, ten miles in the country, with fever on him. 
He died five days after, throwing up a large quantity of black 
vomit before death ensued. 
" In a few days Miss W., an inmate of the family, was taken sick, 
and about the third day of her illness Mrs. McCausland visited my 
mother, and was in Miss W.'s room two or three times during the 
day." 
Mr. S.'s letter, in continuation, describes the cases of several other 
members of his mother's family, and the death of his brother Mr. 
P. C. Smith, with black vomit-all having been exposed to the case 
of young McDermott, and having had no other exposure. The 
cases occurred in rapid succession, and were all pronounced by the 
attending physicians to be yellow fever. Mrs. McCausland, who 
resided nine miles from Woodville, visited (as is stated by Mr. S.) 
his mother's during the illness of Miss W., "and was in her room 
two or three times during the day." 
This visit was on the 20th of September; on the 26th Mrs. McC. 
sickened and subsequently died. On the 1st of October, owing to 
the prevalence of the epidemic in Woodville at the time, I did not 
see her, though her usual medical attendant-one of the gentlemen 
who attended her-pronounced her case to be yellow fever, and 
sent me for examination a vial of fluid ejected from her stomach 
previous to death, which was unquestionably black vomit. 
Twenty days after the death of Mrs. McC., I was called to attend 
her daughter, Miss Eliza, who died on the tenth day after a well 
marked attack of yellow fever. During the progress of her case, 41 
three servants who had aided in nursing her mother, were taken- 
on the day of her death, her brother Marcus was attacked-the day 
following, her sister, Mrs. Chinn, and a few days after Mrs. Stanton 
(who had assisted in nursing Mrs. McC. and Miss E.) had a well 
marked attack. 
During the same fall, yellow fever macle its appearance on the 
plantation of Mr. McCaleb, in West Feliciana Parish. As this 
place adjoined one owned by myself, I was, of course, particularly 
interested, and thus became fully informed of the facts. Dr. Wm. 
Stockbridge, who boarded in the family of Mr. McCaleb, was in- 
duced to go into Bayou Sara during the prevalence of the epidemic 
in order to render his aid to the physicians of that place, several of 
whom were prostrated at the time. Soon after his return to Mr. 
McC.'s he sickened, and in a few days was numbered with the dead, 
thus falling a victim to the generous impulses of a heart which had 
been ever prompt to respond to the calls of the sufferers. 
In quick succession, nearly all the members of Mr. McC.'s family, 
white and black, were attacked, himself and two of his children 
soon following Dr. S. to the grave. In my quarter, which was not 
over half a mile from Mr. McC.'s residence, no cases occurred, nor 
were there any elsewhere in the neighborhood. 
Dr. J. W. Davis, who resided nine miles from Woodville, visited 
a family near Fort Adams, in which there has been several deaths 
from yellow fever, and during the illness of one of its members. 
Twro or three weeks after, he died with black vomit. It cannot be 
ascertained that he was exposed to yellow fever except during this 
visit. 
Dr. B. Baldwin visited Dr. Davis several times in the latter days 
of his illness, and, twenty-two days after his death, sickened and 
died in five days with black vomit. Dr. Baldwin had been in at- 
tendance on Mrs. McCausland six weeks previous to his attack- 
this and the case of Dr. Davis were his only exposures. 
Yellow fever prevailed in 1853 in many other families in the 
adjacent country, but I have confined myself to those instances in 
which little or no doubt existed as to the first exposure. 
In 1854 we had no yellow fever in Woodville, or the surround- 
ing country. I treated ten or twelve cases of dengue during the 
fall. 
I am aware that many gentlemen whose observation and experi- 
ence entitle their opinions to respect, entertain the view that yellow 
fever and dengue are so closely allied as to be one and the same; 42 
and while it must be admitted that the resemblance is very strik- 
ing, my own observation leads me to the conclusion, that they are 
distinct diseases-originating probably from similar causes, yet 
wanting in some ingredient to render them identical; and when we 
call to mind the isomeric theory in chemistry, and the fact that 
under this law the same elements in the same proportions even, 
produce entirely different results, it is not difficult to believe that a 
similar law may prevail in the causes originating diseases. 
The assertion that dengue is a mild form of yellow fever, it is 
clear to me, cannot be true-for, during an epidemic in Woodville 
in 1850, in which nearly every soul suffered an attack, and from 
which not a death occurred, there were a larger proportion of ap- 
parently very severe cases, than would be presented in the same 
number of yellow fever cases. I can in my own person bear wit- 
ness that there is nothing mild in an attack of dengue, either in the 
actual suffering and distress, or the condition in which the system 
is left by an attack. If asked to state the difference between the 
two in symptoms, I would say that in dengue the pains are more 
severe, longer continued, and more erratic; the rigors continue 
longer, often lasting for two or three days when the covering is 
moved ; while in yellow fever they rarely continue over an hour or 
two; the occurrence of an eruption in the majority of cases of 
dengue resembling measles, and often that of urticaria; the pain- 
fully disagreeable visions and illusions which haunt the mind in 
dengue, often even in waking moments, and invariably in slumber; 
the injurious and sometimes fatal results of what are called "im- 
prudences" in yellow fever-the harmlessness of the same acts in 
dengue; and in cases of severity, the greater tardiness in dengue in 
an entire return to healthful feeling. The debility is as great in the 
one as the other-probably in yellow fever oftentimes greater-but 
when the convalescent who has "got well through" an attack of 
yellow fever is once upon his feet, as a rule, his sensations are all 
joyous; he feels as if he had a new lease of life, and this not merely 
from a sense of danger escaped-while one just out of a severe at- 
tack of dengue, if asked how he feels, the most usual and very 
expressive reply is, "I feel mean;" he rarely enjoys those delightful 
emotions which an entire return to healthful feeling can alone im- 
part, but for days, and weeks, and sometimes months, he feels 
" mean." In dengue there is also a marked perversion of the sense 
of taste-nothing is natural, and the patient, in early convalescence, 
will turn with loathing from the idea of eating the most delicate 43 
dishes. While it is undeniably true that rare cases of a second 
attack of yellow fever do occur, I am persuaded their apparent 
frequency arises from the fact that dengue is often called yellow 
fever, and vice versa. The mistake is an excusable one, in view of 
the many points of resemblance between the two diseases. During 
the epidemic yellow fever through which we have just passed, I 
treated seven cases which I pronounced dengue, though nurses and 
patients were disposed to call them all yellow fever. 
In September, 1855, yellow fever again made its appearance in 
Woodville. The circumstances attending its commencement and 
progress are as follows:- 
John Blacker, from Cincinnati, reached Woodville on the 15th 
August, having landed on his way down to Vicksburg, where he 
remained a few days. As yellow fever then prevailed at that 
place, and Woodville was under quarantine regulations, he was 
sent, on the 27th, to Hastings House, a temporary station one mile 
and a half southwest of Woodville, at which place he died with 
yellow fever on the 2d September. It is believed the disease had 
developed itself before he left town, as he had a chill on the even- 
ing of the 26th. On the 28th, Mrs. Blacker and daughter, Mrs. 
Craige and children, and Mrs. Brown, all residents of Woodville, 
and friends and relatives of Blacker, visited him at Hastings. On 
the 5th September, Mrs. Craige was taken sick, her attack being 
very slight. She was not visited by any physician, and we have 
only the opinion of her neighbors, who were familiar with yellow 
fever, and who pronounced hers a case of this disease. On the 
morning of the 6th, I was called to see Miss Woodbridge. On the 
night of the 6th, a negress of Bengoner's had a slight chill followed 
by a fever of five or six days' duration. This was her own state- 
ment to me when called to prescribe for her on the 12th. She 
ejected black vomit the next morning and died on the 14th. 
On the morning of the 7th I prescribed for Wm. Beach, in the 
same house with Miss Woodbridge; on the morning of the 8th for 
Mrs. Blacker and her daughter, both of whom were taken during 
the night of the 7th; on the 9th for two children of Mrs. Craige; 
on the 11th for Anderson, a negro boy at Mr. Butterworth's; on 
the 13th for Mrs. Brown ; on the 18th for Henry Blacker, and on 
the 21st the disease was declared epidemic. 
All the above mentioned cases (Mrs. Brown, H. Blacker, Ben- 
goner's negress, and the boy Anderson excepted), were slight at- 
tacks, and in consequence of the short duration of the febrile action, 44 
I could not pronounce them at the time cases of yellow fever; but 
all doubts in relation to the majority of them were removed by 
subsequent symptoms during and after convalescence. 
I have not been able to discover that Miss W., Wm. Beach, Ben- 
goner's negress, or Anderson, had any communication with John 
Blacker, unless the fact that they resided upon the street along 
which Blacker passed on his way to Hastings', can be deemed such. 
Blacker and Craige reside in the northeastern portion of the vil- 
lage, Butterworth in the southwestern, about half a mile apart. 
Mr. Beach's and Bengoner's houses are on an air line between the 
two-are one-third the distance from Blacker's to Butterworth's; 
Hastings is half a mile beyond Butterworth's, on the same road. 
Mrs. H. D. Smith's plantation is one mile beyond Hastings, and two 
miles and a half southwest of Woodville. About the 1st Septem- 
ber, Jacob, a negro on Mrs. Smith's plantation, was taken sick. 
His attack being slight he had no physician, though it excited no 
suspicion as to the nature of it. On the 16th or 17th I was sent 
for to prescribe for Hannah, the wife of Jacob. On the following 
day I found twelve or fifteen additional cases in the hospital, which, 
after careful examination, I pronounced yellow fever. The first 
cases after Jacob, were members of his family. In the next twenty- 
four hours I had sixty cases under treatment, and the disease ran 
rapidly through the family, white and black. Jacob was, without 
doubt, the first case on the place. He had been passing frequently 
back and forth near Hastings, during the illness of John Blacker, 
and a few days before his illness opened a bale of India bagging 
just from New Orleans. This was his only known exposure to 
yellow fever, if such it may be called. 
On the 26th August I was called up before day by Mr. Wall, 
returning from Cooper's Well, on board the steamer Princess, and 
found him to be in what proved to be the chill of a yellow fever 
attack. We landed in a few hours at Tunica, and he was conveyed 
to his father-in-law's, Mr. F. A. Evans, fourteen miles from the 
river, where he had a severe attack of nine days' duration. Upon 
reaching Mr. E.'s I sent for acclimated nurses to aid me, notwith- 
standing which precaution, in the succeeding ten days or two 
weeks after Mr. W.'s recovery, fourteen negroes, constituting all 
the household servants, stable-boys and hostlers, were attacked, and 
some three weeks after the last case in the yard, the disease de- 
veloped itself in the quarter, which is half a mile from the resi- 
dence. The plantation of Mr. Evans is in a healthy locality, isolated 45 
by fields and forests, and in a region where yellow fever never be- 
fore prevailed. 
A few weeks after Mr. Wall's recovery, he visited the plantation 
occupied jointly by himself and his nephew, Mr. Williams, near 
Fort Adams, accompanied by Mrs. W. and her servant, who had 
also recently recovered from yellow fever. 
Six days after their arrival, the woman in whose room the servant 
of Mrs. W. had been lodged, was taken ill, and on the third day of 
her attack Mr. W. communicated his suspicions to Mr. Williams, 
that it was a case of yellow fever. Mr. Williams immediately left 
the place and proceeded to Dr. Sheppard's, in Pinckneyville, was 
taken ill the following night, and had a well-marked attack of yel- 
low fever. Before he was up from his bed, two servants of Dr. S. 
were attacked. Dr. S. and his wife had both had the yellow fever 
in 1853. In the mean time Mr. Wall had separated the negroes on 
the plantation, selecting some five or six who were known to have 
been in the room with the first case, and keeping them apart from 
the others, and in this manner the progress of the disease was 
arrested. 
It seems to me a fair inference that if the fever had originated on 
the place, this separation would have been of no avail-but Mr. W. 
was able to designate which would be liable, and the result proved 
the correctness of his action. 
Your question: "Do you believe yellow fever transportable and 
communicable? and if so, give the grounds of your belief," is 
sufficiently answered in the foregoing sketch. Except upon the 
hypothesis that yellow fever can re-create itself, under favorable 
circumstances, I see no satisfactory explanation for the cases I have 
quoted, and going over the whole country during the last three 
years, such instances might be added almost ad infinitum. 
It is no argument against this belief to state the fact, that the 
disease does not invariably spread from an imported case. We all 
know and admit this to be true-and we also know it to be true, 
that a well-marked case of scarlatina can occur in a family, and not 
another case follow, or that every member of a household may pass 
through this disease, and none others in the immediate neighbor- 
hood suffer. And yet, no one will deny scarlatina to be highly 
contagious and infectious. The first case in Woodville, in 1854, 
was Mr. Thurber, a gentleman just from Galveston, where yellow 
fever was prevailing, who fell sick soon after his arrival at Wood- 46 
ville; and the next cases were in the family in which he was sick, 
and in the families in the immediate vicinity. 
The first case in our section, in 1853, was Lee, direct from New 
Orleans to the factory, and his companions and nurses were the 
next to suffer. 
The first case in 1855, was John Blacker, direct to Woodville 
from Vicksburg, where yellow fever was prevailing, and among 
the first after his case were those who were known to have visited 
him after his inception of the disease. 
If these are but accidental coincidences, they certainly occurred 
with a strange degree of regularity; not more, however, than that 
which has marked the progress of yellow fever along the course of 
commerce and travel. 
In holding the opinion that this disease is transportable and 
communicable, it does not follow that it may not be of domestic 
origin, whenever causes exist favorable to its production. Acknow- 
ledging my entire ignorance as to them, I will not trouble you with 
idle speculations. 
Respectfully, 
A. C. HOLT. 
III.- Yellow Fever in the Country: An Account of the Disease as it 
prevailed at Judge Baker's Plantation, Parish of St. Mary, Louisi- 
ana, in September and October, 1854. By C. R. Fassitt, M. D. 
The plantation of Judge Baker is situated nine miles below 
Franklin, on the bayou Teche. His residence is on the west side 
of the bayou, which here runs north and south. The negro quar- 
ters are below the residence, the nearest being a hundred yards, and 
the farthest about three hundred and fifty yards distant. The 
bayou is a hundred yards wide, and its shores connected by a 
bridge. On the east side, there is also a row of cabins, situated 
some sixty or seventy yards from the bayou, extending some two 
hundred yards. Opposite the upper part of this row of cabins, is 
a railroad for hauling out vessels. 
There were about one hundred and ninety negroes on this plan- 
tation, one hundred and thirty of whom had yellow fever. Six 
died, of whom two had black vomit, one a mulatto, and the other 
a black negro boy, aged about 10 years. One other was said to 
have vomited black matter, but I did not see the matter ejected. 
This plantation is not usually more sickly than others in the 47 
neighborhood. The negro houses have plank floors, and are as 
comfortable as such houses usually are found. 
There had been no disease prevailing to any extent before the 
appearance of the fever in September. The houses are so situated 
as to form quite a town, and the streets, during the whole of the 
month of September, were in a most wretched condition, being a 
foot deep in mud. 
The origin of this fever is the only matter of special interest 
connected with its history. 
The barque Tivoli sailed from New Orleans towards the last of 
August, and reached Last Island, where, on account of sickness on 
board, she came to anchor, and there remained until the 5th of 
September. Two men died of fever on board, and the captain was 
brought to Centreville, having had fever also. He was very yellow 
and much debilitated, and one of the physicians who saw him, told 
me that he considered his disease yellow fever. 
On the 5th of September, the Tivoli was towed in from Last 
Island by Judge Baker's steamboat Picayune, and left at his plan- 
tation. Here, at the railroad, on the east side of the Teche, she was 
overhauled and cleansed while within a hundred yards of half a 
dozen negro cabins. 
The hands of the Picayune (all of them negroes and mulattoes), 
were the first who were attacked with fever. They had been on 
board of the barque, and had cleansed and smoked her hold, and 
were taken sick within ten days after. 
I did not see them until the 26th September. I was then told 
that all of the hands of the Picayune had been sick, but were re- 
covering slowly; for although they had no fever for several days, 
they were very much debilitated. 
One mulatto, who had had but little fever, complained very 
much of prostration, and I found his pulse at forty-five per minute. 
Another man, also a steamboat hand, had slight bleeding from the 
gums. There were many new cases at this time, in all, some 
twenty negroes were " laid up with fever." The number of cases 
steadily increased until the 20th of October, when about fifty 
negroes were in the cabins. The first death occurred on the 4th 
October, and the last on the 17th November. 
On the 17th October, two cases occurred in white subjects. Mr. 
Anthony Baker and his cousin were both attacked on that day. 
The former had black vomit in two and a half days from the onset 
of the disease, and died on the fourth day. 48 
The latter died on the ninth day, having had hemorrhage from 
the nose and gums, and black vomit. There were seven cases of 
fever among white subjects, and four deaths. 
The negroes for the most part were not seriously affected by the 
disease; many had the fever only twenty-four hours, but in every 
instance, greater prostration was observed than is usual in other 
fevers. 
The negroes in the cabins near where the Tivoli lay, were first 
attacked by the disease, and I did not see a single case in which 
the subject had not been on the east side of the bayou. 
I do not believe that yellow fever is contagious; that is, that one 
person having the disease can under ordinary circumstances com- 
municate it to another. But, here the cause of the fever, whatever 
it may have been, was evidently in the vessel, and was communi- 
cated not only to those who cleansed the hold, but also to all per- 
sons in the vicinity. The cause remained after the vessel had left, 
and evidently increased in intensity. 
Another reason why the disease became more fatal among ne- 
groes was the fact that, owing to the great number sick at one time, 
it was impossible to have them all well attended. 
C. R. FASSITT, M. D. 
I have it in my power to furnish the following additional facts 
relative to the barque Tivoli, obtained from a reliable source:- 
The Tivoli took a cargo from New York to Chagres. After dis- 
charging there, she sailed for Berwick's Bay, on the coast of Louis- 
iana, for the purpose of getting a cargo of molasses to take back to 
New York. After leaving Chagres, sickness broke out on board, sup- 
posed to be what is called " Chagres fever" a severe bilious remit- 
tent, and the distress was so great, that the vessel had to be taken 
to New Orleans. She arrived here in the midst of the epidemic 
yellow fever. A new crew was obtained, and she again put out for 
the bayous emptying into Berwick's Bay. It is presumed this new 
crew consisted of unacclimated men, and the vessel had hardly 
cleared the mouth of the river before yellow fever broke out on 
board, and prevailed to such an extent, that she had to be left to 
the mercy of the waves. She was cast on Last Island, from which 
she was taken by Judge Baker's hands. What occurred afterwards 
is graphically detailed by Dr. Fassitt.-E. D. F. 49 
IV.- Yellow Fever in the Country: An Account of the Disease as it 
prevailed on the Coast below New Orleans, in 1854 and '55. By 
D. R. Fox, M. D. 
Dr. Fenner :- 
Dear Sir : In compliance with my promise, I will endeavor to 
give you an account of the yellow fever as it has occurred in this 
parish; but before doing so, I think it proper to give a general de- 
scription of the parish, its inhabitants, and its most prevalent dis- 
eases. This parish comprises all that narrow strip of land border- 
ing the Mississippi River on both sides, extending from within 
twenty miles of the city of New Orleans, to the mouths of said 
river, being about eighty miles in length, and averaging six miles 
in width. The tillable land extends only thirty acres in its widest 
portion, and about ten acres in its narrowest part back from the 
river; behind this, the land is too low for cultivation, is partially 
covered with water during the winter season, and is affected by the 
tides of the Gulf. During the summer it is comparatively dry, and 
is covered with a species of coarse grass. This prairie land, as it 
is called, extends only a mile or so back of the arable land; be- 
yond this, the land becomes low and marshy, covered by coarse 
reeds, and is intersected by a perfect labyrinth of bayous or natural 
canals which communicate with the gulf. The distance from the 
river to the gulf, I do not think is more than ten miles in its 
widest part, and one or two miles in its narrowest part. 
This parish contains forty-three sugar plantations, producing 
from twelve thousand to eighteen thousand hogsheads of sugar an- 
nually. In its lower portion there are many small rice farms, and 
this section produces more rice than any parish in the State. 
Oranges are grown also in considerable quantities, and contribute 
largely towards the supply of the city of New Orleans. 
Inhabitants.-This is probably the oldest settled portion of the 
State, and contains a greater mixture of the races than any other 
region in the United States. The largest proportion of these are 
descendants of the French. The balance consists of Anglo-Saxon, 
Spanish, Italians and Africans, and a mixture of these in all grades 
and proportions. There is a large free colored population in this 
parish. Scattered along at intervals between the plantations, are 
many small neighborhoods or settlements, as they are called, con- 
sisting chiefly of the native creole population. Of these settlements, 50 
there are six, which deserve more the name of small towns or 
villages. 
1st. The Jesuits' Bend settlement; 2d. Pointe a la Hache; 3d. 
The Ronquille settlement; 4th. The Burat settlement; 5th. TheBa- 
lize; 6th. The Southwest Pass. The Jesuits' Bend is situated on 
the right bank of the river (going down stream), and is twenty- 
three miles from New Orleans. It is divided into two portions, 
the upper portion being separated from the lower by two sugar 
plantations, making an interval of two miles between the two. The 
upper portion of the settlement contains eight families, within the 
space of six acres fronting the river, numbering in all seventy or 
eighty souls. The lower settlement contains about ten families, 
numbering in all between seventy or eighty persons. 
The next village is Point a la Hache; it is forty miles from the 
city ; it is the county seat; has a court-house, jail, and post-office; 
and contains within the space of a mile, probably two hundred 
persons. This village is on the left bank of the river. 
The Ronquille settlement is on the right bank, and contains 
nearly as many inhabitants as Pointe a la Hache. The Burat set- 
tlement is seventy miles from the city, on the right bank of the 
river, is in the vicinity of the present quarantine station, and has 
about fifty families. Finally, at the mouths of the river, are the 
Balize and Southwest Pass settlements, consisting of pilots and 
their families, numbering in all from twenty to thirty inhabitants. 
Diseases.-By far the largest portion of the diseases of this pa- 
rish are miasmatic, chiefly intermittent and remittent fevers, and 
so far as my experience goes, I have found them to yield readily to 
proper treatment, and they are not so often associated with local 
inflammations or congestions as I have observed in some other 
parts of the State. The next most frequent diseases are, dysentery 
and diarrhoea, particularly among the negro population. Many 
cases of Asiatic cholera occur annually; it prevails also more among 
the negroes than whites, and is more fatal to negroes. More cases 
occur in the spring (May and June) than at any other time. This 
disease is sometimes endemic on a plantation, while the adjoining 
ones would be singularly exempt from it. 
Pneumonia occurs during the winter months, but is generally 
mild and easily treated. Worms are very prevalent, particularly 
among the negroes, old and young. Tetanus, both idiopathic and 
traumatic, is of frequent occurrence, mostly among the negroes. 51 
The charbon, or pustule maligne, has occurred here frequently; it 
is a common disease here among the horses, mules, and horned cat- 
tle ; a planter sometimes loses all his stock. In regard to the yel- 
low fever, I have learned some interesting facts. Situated as this 
parish is, so near the city, and there being a constant intercourse 
between the city and the various plantations and villages, by the 
means of numerous sail-boats, which stop along the coast, carrying 
produce of various sorts to New Orleans and bringing merchandise 
to the numerous settlements, and also by a steam packet, which 
regularly stops once a week at every plantation and village between 
New Orleans and the Balize, one would suppose that yellow fever 
would be a common disease among its inhabitants; yet, upon dili- 
gent inquiry among the oldest and most intelligent persons, I am 
informed that the disease has never shown a disposition to spread 
until the year 1854. I have heard of many cases occurring in per- 
sons who having visited the city, have returned home with the seeds 
of the disease in their systems, and have died, throwing up black 
vomit. They were surrounded by their relations and friends during 
their illness, and yet no one took the disease from them. And 
even in 1853, when this disease was spreading terror and desolation 
in the upper parishes, it did not prevail here, although there were 
several cases in persons who had contracted the disease in the city. 
I may mention that this disease has never prevailed among the 
negroes; at least no deaths have occurred among them from this 
disease in this parish. 
Another interesting fact was related to me a few days ago by an 
intelligent planter (a creole, who has resided here all his life); he 
says, that within ten or twelve years, many of the creoles here have 
sold their small farms to the sugar planters, and have gone since to 
reside in New Orleans. He can count upwards of twenty persons 
of his acquaintance, who, although many of them have now resided 
in the city several years, yet, upon diligent inquiry, he can learn of 
one case only of yellow fever among them. 
In 1854, our parish seems to have lost its immunity from this 
pestilence. I was called on the 12th of September, 1854, to see an 
Italian, named Vincent, resident with a creole family. This family 
is in the upper Jesuits' Bend settlement, and consists of six persons, 
viz: the mother, a son eighteen years old, two younger children 
(one girl, ten years, and a boy eight years), also a married daughter 
aged seventeen years, and her husband (an Italian). 52 
I learned this man had come from the city the day previous, and 
that he was unacclimated; had never spent a summer in New Or- 
leans; had been in the United States four years. He had all the 
symptoms of yellow fever well marked, and was sick eight days 
in all. He recovered. 
Case 2. On the 18th of September, the little girl, aged ten years, 
was taken ill with the fever. I saw her twelve hours after, and she 
had unmistakable symptoms of yellow fever. She threw up black 
vomit, and died forty-eight hours after she was first taken ill. 
Case 3. The married daughter, aged seventeen (enceinte six 
months), was taken sick on the 24th with fever. The symptoms, 
though well marked, were mild. The fever lasted fourteen hours, 
and then subsided. I gave her quinine freely. The fever did not 
return. 
Case 4. The little boy, aged eight years, was taken on the 27th, 
having all the characteristic symptoms of yellow fever; was ill six 
days; was convalescent on the 4th. On the second day after the 
fever left his pulse was only fifty a minute. I gave him stimulants, 
and broth as nourishment. He improved and became rapidly 
convalescent. 
Case 5. The mother was taken on the 29th. Symptoms similar 
to the others. Was convalescent on the fifth day. 
The young man, aged eighteen, left the house as soon as the 
Italian was taken, and did not return for two weeks; he escaped 
the fever. The nearest house above was half an acre; it contained 
a large family, fourteen persons in all; no one had the fever. 
Another family, consisting of some fourteen or fifteen persons, 
residing half an acre below, became alarmed as soon as the nature of 
the disease was known, and left their house and went into the lower 
settlement; no one had the fever. No cases of fever occurred out 
of the infected house. As soon as the nature of the disease was 
known, no one visited the house. A neighboring planter kindly 
sent a negro woman, who was acclimated (having lived in New 
Orleans), to nurse the sick. 
I wish I could give you a correct account of the fever as it oc- 
curred in the other settlements, but I have tried in vain to get at 
the particulars. All that I have learned is, that ten days after the 
disease made its appearance in Jesuits' Bend, it occurred in the 
Burat settlement, the fourth village from the city. It is said to 
have been brought there in the same manner that it was brought 
to the Jesuits' Bend settlement, viz: by an Italian boatman. It 53 
was very fatal, only two or three persons recovered. More chil- 
dren than grown persons had the disease. A physician of the 
Bonquille settlement, which is twenty miles above the Burat (the 
late Dr. 0. Hags), was sent for. He paid two visits at the village- 
contracted the disease, and died about forty-eight hours after he 
was taken ill. He threw up black vomit freely. He was attended 
by Drs. Egan and Boyer, who can inform you of the particulars of 
his case. He was visited and attended by his friends and relations, 
yet, no one else had the disease in the Ronquille settlement. About 
two weeks after the disease in the Burat, it prevailed at Pointe a la 
Hache, the second settlement from the city; it was thought to have 
been brought from the Burat settlement. The above were all the 
settlements in which the disease prevailed in 1854. 
September 3, 1855. During the last week in August, I was 
called to see seven cases of fever in one house, all sick at the same 
time, three white, and four blacks. Looking upon them as mere 
cases of bilious intermittent fever, I prescribed for them accord- 
ingly, ordering quinine to be freely given immediately on the sub- 
sidence of the fever. All these cases did well. Two days after, 
while passing the house, I was called in to see another member of 
the family, a young lady, of eighteen years, and found her ex- 
tremely ill. She was throwing up black vomit, and passing the 
same from her bowels. She had been taken ill three days previous 
with fever, accompanied with violent pain in the head, back, and 
calves of the legs. She was treated by her mother with the usual 
creole remedies in such cases, viz: hot pediluvia, cold applications 
to the head, frequent sponging with tepid water and vinegar. She 
had been given an emetic of ipecac, followed by a dose of Epsom 
salts, as her fever had continued without remission. She had taken 
no quinine. I found her restless-much frightened-skin hot and 
dry-pulse one hundred and twenty, but feeble-tongue dry, but 
not furred. She complained of soreness in the fauces. Sclerotic 
slightly yellow-tenderness over epigastrium-suppression of urine. 
I cupped over the seat of pain, and the pain continuing, applied a 
blister over the abdomen, and dressed it with morphine cerate-gave 
her ice to hold in her mouth. She continued to throw up black 
vomit at intervals of four or five hours, and died thirty-six hours 
after the black vomit began. She was given strong chicken broth 
as nourishment, and stimulants also. During the intervals of vom- 
iting, she was quiet and free from pain. She became extremely 
yellow after death. 54 
As soon as this person died, the family removed to a vacant 
house, one acre distant from their dwelling. In six days after their 
removal, a younger sister was taken with the fever, and within the 
space of ten days, every member of the family had had the fever- 
white and black, fourteen in all. The following were the general 
symptoms of nearly all the cases; in some, the disease was much 
milder than in others. 
The disease began with violent pain in the head, back, and 
limbs; the face flushed. The fever began with the pains; the eyes 
were more or less red; the pulse varied from one hundred and 
eight to one hundred and twenty; the tongue in general was moist; 
bowels rather torpid; the skin was hot, but easily made to per- 
spire. In some cases, there was pain over the epigastrium, and 
some nausea at the beginning of the attack. 
Treatment.-I pursued the abortive treatment. The family had 
become alarmed, and I saw every case early. My plan was, first, 
to give a mercurial purge, blue mass or calomel, followed in four 
hours by castor oil. I endeavored to promote free perspiration, by 
means of hot mustard pediluvia and warm orange leaf tea, and 
keeping the patient under cover. As soon as free perspiration was 
established, I gave thirty grains of quinine in two doses, one hour 
or so apart. I gave it in this way for fear the stomach would re- 
ject the thirty grains at once, which was done in one or two in- 
stances. Under this treatment, the patient was relieved in from 
fourteen to twenty hours. I kept them in bed until after the fifth 
day-on the second day, I gave the following diaphoretic mixture 
to keep the skin moist. 
B.-Aqua camphorae ; 
Spt. nit. dulc., 
Spt. mindereri, 
aa 3 ss; 
Paregoric ^ss.-M. 
A tablespoonful every two hours. 
I gave them ice to hold in the mouth when it could be had; gave 
mucilaginous drinks, sometimes acidulated with oranges (green). 
On the second day, gave chicken broth, gradually increasing it on 
the third and fourth day. Some of the cases were exceedingly 
prostrated. To these, I gave stimulants cautiously (usually gave 
brandy julep). Besides the members of this family, I had four 
cases in the adjoining houses; most of them had been with the sick 
family as nurses. Free communication was kept up between the 
families. No precautions taken to isolate the disease. There was 55 
a great deal of prostration considering the short duration of the 
disease; more so than in the ordinary fevers of the parish. 
In searching for the cause of this disease, I learned that the 
family had a negro woman hired in New Orleans. This woman 
came home sick with a mild fever, about six days previous to the 
first cases of fever in the house. She brought her bedding and 
many articles of merchandise with her. The woman soon reco- 
vered, and returned to the city. The first cases of fever in the 
family were among the negroes; in them the disease was more mild 
than in the whites. Up to the time of the sickness in this family, 
the neighborhood had been remarkably healthy, and the black vomit 
case is the first and only white death in my practice this year. 
Thus, I have given you an imperfect account of the yellow fever 
as it has occurred in this parish. I have endeavored to give all 
the facts in regard to the supposed origin of the disease. I do not 
pretend to theorize upon them. I only vouch for the accuracy of 
my own cases. 
I did not deem it necessary to go into the minute detail of every 
case, with symptoms and treatment, although I have taken notes 
of most of them. 
Hoping you will make due allowance for all imperfections, 
I remain, your friend, 
D. R. FOX. 
V.-A Report of the Yellow Fever at Centreville, in 1855, with some 
Remarks on the Disease as it appeared in the Parish of St. Mary, in 
1853, '54, and '55. By Wm. B. Wood, M. D. 
Centreville, situated on the Bayou Teche, in the Parish of 
St. Mary, in the midst of a very densely populated sugar-growing 
region, five miles below Franklin, and twelve miles above Patter- 
sonville, contains a population of about 200. 
In September, 1853, the yellow fever made its appearance at this 
place, for the first time, as an epidemic. Indeed, so far as I am in- 
formed on the subject, for the first time in any shape. 
An account of that epidemic has already been published in the 
" Report of the Sanitary Commission of New Orleans, on the epi- 
demic Yellow Fever of 1853," and also in " Dr. Fenner's report to 
the American Medical Association, on the Yellow Fever and Cho- 
lera of 1853." 
During that epidemic, about 45 or 50 cases of fever occurred in 56 
the village, between the 18th of September and the 18th of No- 
vember, the period at which the disease disappeared. 
It also prevailed in an epidemic form at Pattersonville, at the 
same period of time (an account of which was published by Dr. 
Grout, of Pattersonville, in 1853), and in other portions of the 
Parish below this; while the upper portion of the Parish, including 
the town of Franklin, remained entirely exempt from yellow fever, 
with the exception of one family in Franklin, a report of which 
was made by Dr. Lyman, of Franklin, in a letter to Dr. Fenner, 
and published in New Orleans in January, 1854. 
In September, 1854, the yellow fever again appeared in Patter- 
sonville in an epidemic form, and also at Franklin, and upon the 
plantation of Judge Baker, four miles below Centreville. Of these 
places, Franklin, and Judge Baker's plantation, were severely 
scourged, while Centreville, lying midway between, remained en- 
tirely healthy during the whole season, escaping the yellow fever 
altogether, with the exception of two or three cases, contracted in 
Franklin. Of these cases, one died with black vomit, in our midst, 
and yet the disease failed to spread, or communicate to any one else 
in the village, notwithstanding many were exposed to it who had 
never had yellow fever. 
Does this fact favor the doctrine of contagion ? 
But let us follow its history on another year. And this brings 
us to the period more especially for which this report is intended. 
The history of the fever at Centreville, for 1855, presents more 
than ordinary interest, from the fact, that at one time in its progress, 
it was admitted on all hands to be genuine yellow fever by those 
who examined the cases, and, at another time, disputed by those 
who had already conceded the fact. 
There was another class also, who, having neither the courage to 
approach near enough to the village to examine a single case, nor 
the capacity to judge correctly of the facts, could, standing off at 
the safe distance of five miles, in company with the publisher of that 
interesting 8 by 10 sheet, at Franklin, styled " The Planters' Ban- 
ner !" assert most positively that there had not been a single case 
of yellow fever at Centreville, and that the disease which prevailed 
there, in an epidemic form, and pronounced to be yellow fever by 
six physicians, all of whom had examined the cases, was in fact 
nothing but "Dengue /" 
But to the history. In September, 1855, we find the fever again 
making its appearance at Pattersonville and Centreville about the 57 
same period of the year, and in exactly the same form that it did 
in 1853, prevailing to about the same extent in Pattersonville as in 
1853, but to double the extent in Centreville with regard to the 
number of cases, and perhaps a little milder in its type, while the 
town of Franklin, scourged in 1854, remains entirely free from 
epidemic yellow fever in 1855. 
We hear nothing in 1855 of " barriers thrown across the public 
road a half mile below the town of Franklin," as in 1853, and an 
armed guard stationed there to " fence out" the yellow fever, and to 
keep off the citizens of Centreville and Pattersonville from Frank- 
lin, lest some of the poisonous infection might attach itself to the 
clothing of those coming into the town, and Franklin become again 
the victim of a yellow fever epidemic! On the contrary, the most 
constant and intimate intercourse is kept up between the three 
places during the whole prevalence of the epidemic, both by the 
bayou and the public road, and yet Franklin remains, as in 1853, 
uninfected. 
Does this state of things favor the doctrine of contagion and 
importation? Not at all! But, say the advocates of this doctrine- 
and, of course, the advocates of quarantine-as this disease failed 
to communicate itself to our town and become epidemic, and as 
there were some eighty or ninety cases of the fever at Centreville 
and only one man died, it could not have been yellow fever, and must 
have been some other disease ! It did well enough for yellow fever 
at Pattersonville, because a good many died! Symptoms all right 
at Centreville-looked exactly like yellow fever! acted exactly like it 
in all its stages; but as only one man could be found in the place 
possessed of sufficient patriotism to give the disease a fair chance 
at him, and in the conflict to fall a victim-not only to the disease 
but perhaps to his own folly-that therefore it could not have been 
yellow fever! 
But they must give the disease a name, at all events. It would 
not do to call it bilious fever, as that disease never appears in an 
epidemic form of this kind. It would not do to call it intermittent 
fever, because the fever was not of an intermittent character. It 
would not do for scarlet fever, for there was no scarlet appearance 
of the skin, and sore throat. It would not do to call it "ship fever," 
or "Chagres fever," because the bark "Tivoli" hadn't been around 
this fall, to be " overhauled and cleaned," after lying high and dry 
several weeks, entirely empty, on the sand-bar at Last Island ! It 
would not do to call it the hooping-cough, because of there being 58 
no cough that could be heard! But as " Dengue" was a term not 
well understood, and might be used to mean almost anything, it 
suited the purposes of the "wise men of Franklin," through their 
organ, the Planters' Banner, to christen the yellow fever at Centre- 
ville in 1855 " the Dengue!"1 
Some of these Franklin people are great contagionists and quaran- 
tinists. They could see no possible way for the yellow fever to get 
into Franklin in 1853, and appear in the family of Mrs. Smith 
alone, as it did, except through the medium of a " box of axes" or 
a " paper package containing India-rubber coats," arriving directly 
from New York in a vessel by the way of Centreville! And, 
strange to say, the "negro man who carried them" from Centreville 
to Franklin, and the clerk in the store who received and opened them 
at Franklin, escaped entirely. 
Again, in 1855, we find that two persons actually die of yellow 
fever, with black vomit, in the town of Franklin-Captain Leaky, 
disease contracted at St. Martinsville, and Mrs. Cooper (how con- 
tracted unknown), and the yellow fever fails to spread or to com- 
municate itself to a single individual among all the nurses and 
attendants ! And yet we find persons contending everywhere that 
yellow fever is a contagious disease, and nothing but quarantine 
regulations can prevent its spread ! 
But let ns proceed with our examination into the history and 
symptoms of the epidemic fever, as it prevailed at Centreville in 
September and October, 1855, and determine, if we can, whether 
the physicians who examined the cases and treated the disease were 
right in calling it yellow fever. 
During the months of May, June, and July, there prevailed in 
Centreville and in the surrounding country the usual amount of 
intermittent and remittent fever, mild in type and yielding readily 
to medical treatment. 
We had also, especially in June, July, and a part of August, 
among the negroes on many of the plantations, the flux, which was 
often troublesome to manage, and sometimes fatal; and the hoop- 
ing cough prevailed extensively among children the whole season. 
The spring and early part of the summer were unusually dry; 
but in July and the early part of August very large quantities of 
rain fell, and the rays of the sun were exceedingly hot, and flies 
and mosquitoes became very numerous. During the month of 
August there were a few cases of bilious remittent fever on the 
plantations around, but scarcely a case of fever of any kind occur- 59 
red in the village during August and up to the time of the epidemic 
on the 8th of September. 
On the morning of the 9th of September I was called to visit 
Mr. Hine, a merchant of our place, who was taken sick on the 
evening before with a slight chill, followed by fever, violent pain 
in the head, back, and eyes; eyes suffused aad injected, and very 
sensitive to light; complained of great pain in the eyeballs; tongue 
rather clean, and pulse about 110. His fever continued between 
two and three days, and went off very gradually. On the 9th 
another case occurred, Mr. Bonta; on the 10th two others, Mrs. 
Whitworth and George Rogers; and in less than ten days there 
were between thirty and forty cases of exactly the same kind of 
fever under treatment in the village, and this, be it remembered, 
out of a population of only about two hundred. 
Of these four cases, three of them were under my treatment, all 
of which I pronounced yellow fever. The other case, treated by 
Dr. Fassitt, was pronounced by him to be yellow fever at the time. 
Subsequently, Drs. S. Allen, C. M. Smith, and J. W. Lyman, 
resident physicians of Franklin, came down to Centreville, and 
were invited by me to visit and examine some of the cases under 
treatment at the time; and all of them gave it as their opinion, 
after so doing, that the disease was genuine yellow fever. Dr. Ethan 
Allen, another physician of our place, was taken sick himself soon 
after the outbreak of the fever, and saw very few of the first cases, 
enough, however, to satisfy him, as he told me, that the disease was 
yellow fever, of a mild type. 
Dr. Fassitt, who treated a number of the cases during the epi- 
demic, entertained no doubt of the disease being genuine yellow 
fever, until his patients refused to die! and so expressed himself to 
several persons in and out of the village. This fact was sufficient, 
perhaps, to create a doubt in his mind, when he reflected upon the 
success which attended his practice in the treatment of the yellow 
fever of 1853 and 1854. But I am of opinion that if he had pur- 
sued the same practice in 1855 that he did in the yellow fever of 
1853 and 1854, he would have had no grounds to doubt, at least 
upon that score. He treated the man (from the third day of his 
illness), who died at the hotel on the 23d of September, and in- 
formed me that a dark looking matter, which ran freely from his 
nose and mouth some twelve hours after death, was, in his opinion, 
genuine black vomit. This corpse I also examined myself, some 
twelve or fourteen hours after death, and I entertained no doubt, 60 
from the appearance presented, and from what I had learned of the 
history of the case, before death, that this man's disease was yellow 
fever. And I agreed with Dr. Fassitt, in the opinion expressed, that 
the dark matter running from his nose and mouth at the time, was 
genuine black vomit. Indeed, I have not the slightest doubt on 
that subject. It was as pure looking black vomit as I ever saw 
thrown from the stomach of any case of yellow fever. 
This man was a German by birth; appeared to have been but a 
short time in the country, as he could speak but little English; was 
a carpenter by trade, and had been at work in Centreville but a 
month or two when taken sick. When attacked with the fever, he 
refused to allow a physician to be called to treat him, and under- 
took the management of his own case. 
From this circumstance (and all the cases appearing to be of a 
manageable type), I felt anxious to see how a case of fever would 
terminate when left to nature and the nurse. And hence I watched 
the progress of his case from time to time as I passed by the door 
of his room at the hotel, while attending to a patient of my own in 
the next room, with the same disease. And from what I was able 
to see myself and learn from his nurse, a countryman of his, who 
attended to him, I found that he was taken sick exactly like a ma- 
jority of the cases under treatment in town, viz., chill, followed by 
fever, pain in the head, back, and eyes. Eyes injected, and very 
red; tongue clean and moist at the onset, and looking almost natu- 
ral. Indeed, I did not find a dry tongue among all the cases I 
attended during the epidemic. Skin hot, in this case, but easily 
induced to sweat; pulse from 110 to 120; the fever continuing 
along from day to day, with no intermission, and very slight re- 
mission. 
He had, from time to time, hemorrhage from the nose and gums. 
The pain in the head and back continued, with the fever; and the 
nurse said he never slept at all. 
His treatment, in the beginning, consisted of a dose of rhubarb, 
followed by castor oil, which acted freely on his bowels, and his 
discharges appeared consistent. He kept very quiet in bed, drank 
warm tea from time to time, and sweated freely, for the two or three 
days that I noticed him, and I thought, at one time, that he would 
recover. 
However, getting no better, I presume, about the third day of 
his illness, Dr. Fassitt was called in to take charge of the case (as I 
was informed), by Cary, the hotel keeper. After this period I saw 61 
little or nothing of him until the evening of the fifth day of his 
attack, when he was said to have spasms, and I walked into his 
room in company with Dr. Fassitt. He was then struggling with 
strong spasms, and requiring the exertions of two men to hold him 
in bed. His face was flushed, and his pulse strong and full. Dr. 
Fassitt corded his arm and bled him from a free orifice, about a 
quart. Blood dark, and appeared to coagulate in the bowl. Under 
the bleeding, he calmed down. I know not if anything else was 
done for him at the time, as I shortly after left the room. 
Dr. F. being called away shortly after, requested me to call back 
to the patient's room again and see him. I did so in about an hour, 
and found him dead. 
Had this man's case not terminated fatally for twenty-four or 
forty-eight hours longer, I believe he would have thrown up black 
vomit before death. As it was, the blood was not sufficiently dis- 
solved to enter the stomach through the coats of the mucous mem- 
brane. He had, however, as before stated, hemorrhage from the 
nose and gums, before death, and I am fully satisfied the dark 
matter running from his mouth and nose, at the time I saw him, 14 
hours after his death, was the genuine black vomit of yellow fever. 
This was the only case of fever that died at Centreville during the 
epidemic, out of some 80 or 90 cases, and this was the only case 
that was not promptly treated by a physician, from the beginning of 
an attack. 
The fever was uniform in its character in every case; continuing 
without any intermission, and very slight remission, for from two 
to four days; and once off showed no disposition to return again, 
except in case of a relapse. Indeed, in every case, it was a fever 
of one paroxysm, lasting about three days, attended in all cases, 
with more or less pain in the head, back, and eyeballs; the pain 
generally continuing along with the fever, and going off only as 
the fever subsided. In some cases, there was bilious vomiting in 
the beginning of the attack. In at least one-half of the cases, how- 
ever mild, there was more or less hemorrhage from the nose and 
gums; and in many of the more violent cases, there was tenderness 
over the region of the stomach, with vomiting, belching, and hic- 
cup, and in every case there was very great prostration of strength 
following the decline of the fever. The red and injected appear- 
ance of the eyes was generally followed by a dull yellow look of 
the conjunctiva, and yellowness of the skin attended many of the 
worst cases of the disease. 62 
The fever began to abate after the middle of October, and by the 
10th of November had disappeared entirely. And in this particu- 
lar resembled exactly the course of the epidemic of 1853, which 
lasted about 60 days. 
Indeed, I could discover no difference in the symptoms and cha- 
racter of the epidemic of 1855 and that of 1853, at Centreville. 
Both observed not only the same laws in their progress, but the 
same geographical limits within the village, extending as far up 
and down the bayou, and along the public roads, as in 1853, and no 
farther. 
As in 1853, it refused to extend itself into the surrounding 
country. Several from the country exposed themselves to the 
disease in the village, contracted the fever, returned home, were 
nursed and attended by their families during the period of their 
illness, and yet not a solitary instance occurred, in which the fever 
was communicated to a single individual member of the family, 
outside of the village. 
This was the case also in the epidemic of 1855. The disease 
could only be contracted within the limits of the infected district, 
and was not capable of propagating itself from person to person in 
the country, among those exposed either by contagion or infection. 
One argument used by those who contend that the disease could 
not have been yellow fever in 1855, is that the fever attacked all 
persons indiscriminately; those who had had the yellow fever in 
1853, as well as those who had not. This is not a fact. 
I do not believe a single case occurred in Centreville of well 
marked yellow fever, during the epidemic of 1855, in the person of 
any one, supposed to have had genuine yellow fever during the 
epidemic of 1853. My opportunities of judging correctly on this 
point will certainly not be disputed, as I treated nearly all the 
cases in 1853 in the village, and a large majority of them again in 
1855. I know that some few had fever during both epidemics. But 
when we understand that every case of fever that occurred during 
the two epidemics was not yellow fever; and that a number of 
cases of plain intermittent fever, and a few cases of well marked 
remittent bilious fever, so plain that a nurse could at once detect 
them-occurred during the epidemic in both years; then, it is not 
to be wondered at, that some few persons who had fever in 1853, 
should have fever again, of one sort or another, during the epidemic 
of 18551 
In the family of John Rogers, his wife alone had yellow fever in 63 
1853, while in 1855 every other member of his family, himself in- 
cluded, had yellow fever; his wife nursed them all; and yet she 
escapes the fever entirely in 1855. 
In the family of Ralph D. Smith, his wife and daughter alone 
had yellow fever in 1853. In the epidemic of 1855, nearly every 
other member of his family, himself included, had the fever, and 
the wife and daughter escape. 
Other instances of a similar character could be given, but these 
are deemed sufficient. 
Whole families escaped in 1853, and were nearly all sick during 
the epidemic of 1855. 
Dr. Fassitt thinks he had the yellow fever in 1853, and says, he 
had the prevailing fever during the epidemic of 1855. And this, I 
understand, to be the second ground upon which he predicates his 
opinion, that the epidemic fever of 1855, at Centreville, was not 
yellow fever. 
It was a very easy matter for him to have been mistaken in his 
own case. Physicians are not always the best judges in their own 
cases. 
And, it is also possible for Dr. Fassitt to have had yellow fever 
both seasons. 
Persons have undoubtedly had the disease twice, if we are to rely 
upon reports made by physicians, and I am sure I am not prepared 
to say that a person might not have yellow fever, even oftener than 
twice under some circumstances. 
Some expose themselves freely, and never have the disease at all. 
This has been my own case. Although exposed to yellow fever in 
1843, 1847, 1853, 1854, and 1855, I have so far escaped the dis- 
ease entirely. 
Entertaining no fears for my personal safety during the prevalence 
of yellow fever as an epidemic, perhaps has contributed more than 
anything else, to my entire exemption from the disease, during the 
several years in which I have been exposed. 
The treatment adopted at Centreville, during the epidemic of 
1855, was very simple and very successful. That which I had used 
here so successfully in the yellow fever of 1853, was the general 
treatment which was followed in 1855. The disease being mild in 
its type, and no panic arising among the citizens on the subject of 
the epidemic, it yielded more readily to medical treatment. 
A mild mercurial cathartic at the commencement of the fever, 
followed, some hours after, by a moderate dose of castor oil, to 64 
evacuate the bowels fully; together with warm orange-leaf tea as a 
drink, and hot mustard foot-baths, to induce free perspiration dur- 
ing the continuance of the fever; and perfect quiet in bed under 
blankets, constituted, generally, the medical treatment during the 
paroxysm of the fever. 
In some few cases attended with vomiting at the beginning, a 
gentle emetic of mustard and common salt, in warm water; or, of 
ipecac., was given first to empty the stomach, and to assist in de- 
veloping the fever. This generally induced free perspiration at 
the start, and tended somewhat to lessen the pain in the head and 
back. No nourishment was allowed until after the fever began to 
subside, or most generally, until after it had gone entirely off, when 
gruel, chicken water, or beef-tea, were allowed in small quantities; 
and brandy toddy, brandy julep, or champagne wine in ice, were 
given in such quantities as nature required, and the stomach would 
bear. 
While the fever was subsiding, or after it had gone off, a dose of 
sulph. morphine was sometimes administered, to quiet nervousness 
and induce sleep; when this could not be taken safely, owing to 
any idiosyncrasy in the case, a stiff brandy toddy was sometimes 
given, with a very good effect. 
No change was allowed to be made in the bedding or clothing of 
the patients, between the period when the fever subsided, and the 
sixth or seventh day of the attack, and the most perfect quiet 
enjoined upon them, until after this period. This, as a general 
thing, constituted the treatment pursued in a majority of the cases. 
Some cases, differing from the general run, being more violent in 
their type, required some modification in their mode of manage- 
ment. 
Speaking of the use of brandy toddy in this disease, I will here 
remark, that it will be found one of the very best remedies we can 
use to arrest black vomit, and save the life of the patient, after that 
alarming and fatal symptom has made its appearance. 
In one case which I had in November, 1854, of a lady on Bayou 
Sale, in this parish, the wife of a sugar planter, I arrested black 
vomit, which had continued at intervals for six hours, to be thrown 
up in small quantities, by the free use of brandy toddy alone, and 
the lady is now living to testify to the fact. And although I have 
seen several die with black vomit, this was the first case of recovery 
in an adult that I ever witnessed myself, after that fatal symptom 
had supervened. 
My manner of using the brandy toddy on the occasion, was this: 65 
I mixed half a glass of the strong toddy at a time, and then gave 
the patient two or three swallows of it, after every effort at vomit- 
ing. 
At first, the toddy was instantly thrown up, and the patient de- 
clared to me that it was too heating to her stomach, and that it 
made her vomit more. To this, however, I paid no attention, I had 
tried so often before, almost every remedy that suggested itself in 
such cases, and failed to do any good; and I had tried the plan of 
keeping everything out of the stomach, and yet the case would die, 
whether the vomiting ceased or not; that in this case, I determined 
to push the brandy, and give the remedy a fair trial. And after 
every effort at vomiting, which came on at intervals of about ten 
or fifteen minutes between, I gave a few swallows of the toddy- 
strong toddy-for my patient was fast sinking, with cold clammy 
skin, small pulse, and hiccuping at every breath. In about an 
hour's time the toddy began to stick on the stomach, and the black 
vomit to be thrown up in smaller quantities, and requiring great 
effort; and in three hours' time, I had not only arrested all vomit- 
ing, but I had obtained a warm healthy glow of the skin, and the 
pulse had become full and round. 
She was kept very quiet, and for the twenty-four hours that fol- 
lowed she took nothing on her stomach but small quantities of the 
brandy toddy, at longer or shorter intervals, as the state of the skin 
and pulse seemed to indicate. On the second day, I substituted 
champagne wine for the brandy toddy, and allowed some arrow- 
root gruel, which was followed by broth, etc. As stated before, 
the lady recovered, and is now in the enjoyment of excellent 
health. 
A few words as to the origin and spread of yellow fever, and I 
will close this report. I do not believe yellow fever to be conta- 
gious. I have seen much of the disease for several years past, and 
I have been unable to discover a single fact, which could induce a 
belief in my mind, that the disease is contagious; or, that it can 
propagate itself from one person to another, as we know that small- 
pox, measles, and other contagious diseases, possess the power 
to do. 
I believe the poison which gives rise to yellow fever, to exist in 
the atmosphere; is generated under peculiar circumstances, re- 
quiring the influence of certain degrees of heat and moisture, added 
to animal and vegetable decomposition; that this power, when gene- 
rated, is of local origin, and confined to certain circumscribed dis- 66 
tricts of country, or portions of our country; and that all who enter 
within that infected circle, and breathe the air, are liable to take 
the disease. 
That this poison did originate spontaneously at Centreville, both 
in 1854 and 1855, and that yellow fever here, owed its origin to 
local causes, and not to importation from any other place; that yel- 
low fever will not always spread from the introduction of a case of 
the disease into a family or community, is established by the fact, 
that it failed to spread at Centreville, when introduced in 1854, and 
also, in Franklin, when introduced in the persons of Capt. Leaky, 
and Mrs. Cooper, in 1855, notwithstanding the disease had pre- 
vailed in an epidemic form only the year before, at both places, 
and cases terminating in black vomit were introduced in both in- 
stances, and the whole community were more or less exposed. 
Indeed, a hundred instances could be given of just such facts, of 
persons dying with yellow fever at different places, and nobody 
else contracting the disease. In some instances, as was the case in 
this parish the past fall, a whole family, consisting of the father, 
mother, and two children, all died of yellow fever in one house, 
while on a visit to a relative; and although nursed by the members 
of the family of the relative, at whose house they were visiting, not a 
single case of the fever occurred among all the nurses and attendants! 
None of the first cases that occurred at Centreville this fall, had 
been exposed in the slightest degree to yellow fever, from any other 
point. It is true, Mr. Hine had returned from New York, about 
fifteen days before his attack. But he came down the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers, and not by New Orleans; and in coming home, 
never made the least stop at any place where yellow fever was sup- 
posed to exist. Of the three other cases taken sick about the same 
time, none of them had been out of Centreville to expose them- 
selves. All lived in different parts of the village, and only two of 
them had been near enough to Mr. Hine to speak to him since his 
return from the North. 
Centreville, La., December, 1855. 
VI.- Yellow Fever in Thibodeaux, La., in the year 1854. By M. A. 
McLeod, of Thibodeaux. 
Previous to the appearance of the yellow fever here this year, we 
had very unsettled weather-rain almost every day-yet there was 
nothing in or about the town that would indicate sickness of any 67 
kind, and up to that time during the summer, the place had been 
remarkably healthy. 
The first case occurred in September. On the 12th day of that 
month, I was informed that there was a case of yellow fever in 
town; the sick man was an Italian, who had recently returned from 
New Orleans; yet, the attending physician did not pronounce the 
case yellow fever (perhaps not wishing to create an alarm). My 
informant was one of the nurses, and non-professional, but he 
had seen and nursed a number of cases of yellow fever the previous 
year, and he did not hesitate to pronounce this a well developed 
case of that disease. The Italian recovered. On the evening of 
the 20th of September, some of our unacclimated citizens became 
alarmed; it was reported that a tailor on the opposite square from 
where the Italian was sick, was dying of yellow fever, and I was 
asked to go, and if possible, ascertain the correctness of the report. 
I called at the house next morning, but the man had died during 
the night. I met the attending physician (who was the same that 
had treated the Italian), but he gave me very little satisfaction in 
regard to the case, and stated that the patient had thrown up black 
matter, but he rather looked upon his disease as cholera. 
September 22d, a woman, near the above, and on the same street, 
and opposite to where the Italian was sick, died this day of yellow 
fever, pronounced such by her attending physician, Dr. J. W. Dea- 
drick. A German gardener, who resided four miles above the 
town, was in the place, and assisted in putting the corpse in the 
coffin, and attended the funeral. He went home, and a few days 
after he was taken with fever and was removed back to town. On 
the night of October the 4th he died with black vomit. This was 
likewise the patient of Dr. J. W. Deadrick, and it was the first case 
of black vomit I saw this year. About this time, the fever ap- 
peared to have spread pretty much throughout the town, and all 
our physicians reported a greater or less number of cases, which 
alarmed the unacclimated, many of whom fled to the country, and 
remained there secure until we had frost. 
Now, I have no doubt but the first case of yellow fever here this 
year, was the Italian's, and he brought the disease from New Or- 
leans, and from him it spread throughout this place. We could 
not trace it distinctly from one person to another, yet, there are 
some few cases where we could trace it distinctly, such as the fol- 
lowing :- 
An Episcopal minister (Mr. Trader), who came to reside here 68 
last spring, and was unacclimated, visited a young man who lay 
sick with fever, and a few days after, he went about a mile in the 
country (at Judge Guion's), to dine. After dinner it rained, and 
he was prevailed on to spend the night; some time in the course 
of which, he was taken with yellow fever, and remained there until 
he was convalescent. A few days after this, the family where this 
man was staying, were taken with the fever, and one, a very inte- 
resting daughter, died. A son-in-law of Judge Guion, Dr. Young, 
who resided in Houma, sixteen miles from this place, where there 
was no yellow fever, came up with his lady to attend on the sick, 
and while there, they were both taken with the fever, and the Doc- 
tor died. 
There are other instances here where the disease appeared to 
spread by contagion, and, in fact, it was far more traceable from 
person to person, than an epidemic of smallpox has been, which we 
have but recently passed through here. 
A man came from New Orleans here with smallpox, and so soon 
as it was ascertained that he had the disease, he was removed with- 
out the limits of the town, where he died, and his clothes were there 
burned. Yet, in ten or fifteen days after this the smallpox broke 
out in all quarters of the town, the cases within a few days of each 
other. In the most cases it was in persons who had not been near 
the sick man, and I look upon it just as easy to account for the 
spread of one, as the other. I do not pretend to say that the con- 
tagion of yellow fever is as virulent as that of smallpox under all 
circumstances, yet,, it may be so in tropical climates where it is en- 
demic. I look upon yellow fever as an imported disease, and 
whenever this or any other climate assimilates in temperature and 
other things that where yellow fever is indigenous, let the conta- 
gion once be started, and it will spread from person to person, 
until we have a change in temperature to check it. 
The fever continued to attack the unacclimated until we had a 
killing frost, which occurred on the 15th of October; and even after 
this we had a good many cases, but it was among persons who had 
been exposed to the disease previous to the frost. 
One recovered after black vomit in my practice. Now, in regard 
to the treatment, so much has been said, that I deem it unnecessary 
to speak of that in detail. But I look upon it, that remedies that 
might be found efficacious in one locality, might not answer so well 
in another, as the yellow fever, I think, is apt to partake of the 
nature of the prevailing disease of the particular localities where it 69 
spreads, and no doubt requires to be treated accordingly. And this 
will account, in a measure for the different successful treatment in 
different places, although they may be the opposite of each other. 
The treatment I found most efficacious, was to open the bowels 
freely at the start; mustard foot-baths and warm teas, until the 
fever had subsided; and then, stimulants or not according to cir- 
cumstances. I used very little quinine. 
The muriated tinct. of iron I used to some little extent, but not 
sufficiently to speak of its effects, either pro or con. 
VII.-An Account of the Epidemic Yellow Fever at Cooper's Wells, in 
Hinds County, Miss., during the Summer and Autumn of 1855. By 
J. S. Beazley, M. D. 
I visited Cooper's Wells in November last, after the subsidence 
of the memorable epidemic, and must confess, I could discover no 
evidence of a local cause that I would consider capable of giving 
rise to such a disease. I therefore think there must have been 
some foreign influence, or else a very extraordinary condition of the 
atmosphere, that caused the endemic fevers of the place to assume or 
run into the yellow fever type. You will perceive, that Dr. Beazley 
mentions the abundant prevalence of intermittent fever at the time of 
the outbreak of yellow fever. To use his own language, "the 
change was gradual, a running into yellow fever as it were." 
The Doctor appears to attach much importance to the apparently 
infectious communication that could be traced in every instance 
where cases occurred in the neighborhood, with the exception of 
one family; but, strange to say, that was the only case in which the 
disease ran through the whole family. This would appear to prove 
the necessary presence of some local cause or influence at that spot, 
or, at least, that the disease is incapable, per se, of regenerating its 
own poison, and thus spreading from person to person. The facts 
bearing on this point that have been observed within the last few 
years, really appear to be so contradictory, that it is almost impos- 
sible to get at their true meaning. I am happy to find some of my 
own observations and conclusions respecting yellow fever, sup- 
ported by the testimony of Dr. B.; such as the close relationship 
between the different types of fever prevailing, and the difficulty of 
distinguishing them-the extraordinary mildness of the symptoms 
in many cases, as I witnessed in the Norfolk epidemic-attacks 
sometimes attended with bilious vomitings, contrary to the rule 
laid down by Dr. Nott, of Mobile; the beneficial effects of sponta- 70 
neous hemorrhages from the nose and gums; the fatal effects of 
suppression of urine, etc. In short, Dr. Beazley's letter is very 
valuable, and I commend it to the special attention of your readers. 
E. D. F. 
Cooper's Wells, March 6th, 1856. 
Dr. E. D. Fenner-Dear Sir: Agreeable to promise, I will en- 
deavor to give you a short history of the epidemic, as it occurred 
at Cooper's Wells during last summer. Not having taken notes of 
the cases under treatment for yellow fever, I cannot enter into a 
minute description as to symptoms, or management in any parti- 
cular case. My object will only be to give you a general outline 
of the prevalence of the fever at this place and vicinity. 
The visitor on arriving at Cooper's Wells, will not fail to be 
struck with the high and elevated location of this justly celebrated 
watering place, the romantic scenery, and the rolling character of 
the country in every direction. Owing to its natural advantages in 
this respect, there can be no accumulation of filth, animal or vege- 
table; every shower of rain washing the hills clean, and free from 
anything that is calculated to produce disease. No swamp or low 
marshy places in the vicinity giving rise to malaria. 
Consequently, I think you will agree with me, from your know- 
ledge of this section of Hinds County, that there is no local cause 
at this locality, capable of originating yellow fever. The question 
then, very naturally arises, in the absence of any proof of the 
origin of an epidemic at this point, how was it communicated here? 
Whether by the transmission of goods and baggage from an in- 
fected district, or by persons having been exposed to, and inhaling 
the atmosphere of a yellow fever region, and coming to the W ells, 
the disease developing itself after their arrival? I will mention a 
few facts just here, and leave you to draw your own conclusions. 
A milliner, from New Orleans, came to this place early in the 
summer, rented rooms, and opened a lot of goods for sale, and was 
constantly receiving and opening boxes containing ribbons, silks, 
and fancy articles, from your city, during the prevalence of fever 
there. Several ladies who were frequently at her store and bought 
goods were attacked with fever, one of whom died with black 
vomit. This woman soon after took the fever, and also an Irish 
chambermaid, and several servants who occupied adjacent rooms. 
On the 8th of August (which was before the fever made its appear- 
ance in Vicksburg), there being an increase of company at the 71 
Wells, the proprietor of the hotel went to the above-mentioned 
place, and purchased twenty mattresses, which were shipped imme- 
diately to this place. I mention this fact, because it has been fre- 
quently remarked and reported through the country that the mat- 
tresses were ordered from New Orleans. About the middle of 
August, two suspicious cases occurred, which created considerable 
alarm among the visitors, but not regarded as yellow fever by the 
attending physician, both of which died on the fourth or fifth day, 
with symptoms of fever, but no black vomit. Each of these cases 
came from a fever district a few days before they were taken sick. 
For a week or ten days there was no sickness of any description. 
On the 23d of August, a lady from Louisiana was attacked with 
fever; came through Vicksburg a short time before. On the 26th 
of August Dr. Pugh was attacked (the Doctor attended the cases 
above spoken of). Both of these cases died with black vomit on 
the fifth day. The prominent symptoms in these, as well as many 
other cases, were severe pain in the head, back, and calves of the 
legs, high fever, great thirst and restlessness, sick stomach, eyes 
injected, skin yellow, often hot and dry, and frequently a profuse 
sweat; but a steady, gentle perspiration, could not, in most in- 
stances, be kept up; tympanites and suppression of urine, coma and 
black vomit, would generally end the same on the fourth or fifth, 
and sometimes on the third day. During the week that the two 
latter cases were sick, I saw and treated some fifteen or twenty cases 
of well-marked intermittent and remittent forms of fever, all of 
whom got well, under a mild course of medication for those dis- 
eases. The fever then assumed a different type; the change was 
gradual, a running into yellow fever as it were, and spread rapidly, 
principally among the blacks. 
At the commencement of the epidemic, dating from the 23d of 
August, there were about four hundred persons at the Wells, white 
and black, exposed up to the 31st of August, when the first death 
took place. Yet, I only heard of two cases of fever occurring out 
of this large number after they left Cooper's Wells. All who 
remained were connected with the establishment, numbering fifty, 
white and black. Of these, four had had the fever previously, and 
one escaped an attack. There were forty-five attacks and nine 
deaths-six whites and three blacks. 
It may be well to remark that we had valuable aid in the persons 
of Drs. Hubbard, Buckner, and Brickell, of Vicksburg, and Dr. 
Cabaniss, of Jackson. And if a competency of good nurses could 72 
have been procured, I am inclined to think, that the mortality would 
have been diminished to half the number reported, the majority of 
cases assuming a mild form. I was called to see a number of fever 
cases between the Wells, Raymond, Newton, and Jackson, all in 
the same county. Whenever I was called to patients in the coun- 
try, I endeavored to find out, if possible, whether they had, at any 
time, been where the fever was prevailing. They answered me 
invariably in the negative. But, on pressing my inquiries, I found 
that they had been brought in contact with goods recently received 
from an infected district, either at the store or by shipments made 
to them by their merchants at Vicksburg or New Orleans. Others 
had visited the rooms of the sick. In one family where the fever 
prevailed to an alarming extent, I was not able to trace the origin 
of the fever among them to any other agency than the transmission 
of some morbific matter through the medium of the atmosphere. 
The attacks here were violent. There were in this family twenty 
persons, white and black; nine were attacked (seven whites and 
two colored); three deaths, two whites and one black. 
This was the only place in the country that the fever spread to 
any extent in the same family. It has frequently occurred to me, 
during the epidemic last summer, that it was strange, where so 
many in the same family, often in the sick-room, and acting as 
nurses, did not have the fever, if, as some writers hold, yellow fever 
is contagious. I could mention several instances where only one 
in a large family had the fever without communicating it to any 
other member, notwithstanding the relatives mingled freely in the 
sick-room. In many cases that came under my observation the 
advance of the disease was very mild; the patient complained but 
little, generally of a fulness or tight feeling in the head, a sensation 
of weariness in the lumbar region, tongue slightly coated, often 
clean, and but little fever. In several instances it was difficult to 
determine at first whether the patient had the fever or not; but in 
a short time more urgent symptoms supervened and removed all 
suspense with regard to the true nature of the case. In others the 
attack was open and bold; high fever, severe pain in the head, 
neck, back, and limbs, very restless, sick stomach, with bilious 
vomitings, etc. I witnessed one case in which the patient at the 
onset of the disease became delirious-recovered after a protracted 
illness. In two others hunger was a prevailing feature, each attack 
mild. When hemorrhage occurred at the nose or mouth the case 
almost always terminated favorably. Black vomit was not common 73 
in the epidemic here; but few recovered after this fatal symptom 
made its appearance. 
In one case that had black vomit the discharge by the bowels 
seemed to be pure blood; after standing a short time it coagulated 
into a solid mass. And in another who had black vomit, the dejec- 
tions were precisely the same as that passed from the stomach. 
Each case proved fatal. Suppression of urine was always a fatal 
symptom. When this secretion was scanty, or not voided for 
twelve or fourteen hours, it was often relieved by appropriate 
remedies. From the appearance of sudamina, convalescence most 
generally followed. In one case this eruption was superseded by 
a large number of boils all over the surface, from the size of a pea 
to that of a hazelnut. 
It will not be expected of me, from my limited experience in the 
treatment of yellow fever, to contribute anything new to the mode 
usually adopted; but a few remarks under this head on the course 
pursued here will close this communication. The treatment carried 
out was principally on the expectant plan, which consisted (after 
putting the patient to bed, administering foot-bath, etc.) of a gentle 
purge of some kind; calomel and rhubarb were used, but I saw 
better effects from a simple dose of oil. Of the different alkalies 
lime-water was preferred, given early in the attack and continued 
during sickness. The object was to keep up a gentle perspiration 
all the time. As long as the skin acted well, nothing was done for 
the patient, unless symptoms called for more active remedies, 
beyond the use of cold drinks to allay thirst and adding as much 
as possible to the comforts of the sick-room. When high fever 
came on, with great thirst and restlessness, ext. aconite was admi- 
nistered with good effect, in from quarter to half grain doses every 
three or four hours, in order to reduce the action of the heart, and 
also for its diaphoretic properties. But this, I think, is a remedy 
that requires watching, as there is already too great a tendency to 
sedation in most cases of yellow fever. Mustard poultices to the 
stomach, and enemas of cold slippery-elm water, repeated every 
four hours, I found to have a fine effect where the febrile symptoms 
ran high, hot and dry skin, thirst, and tenderness on pressure of 
the epigastric region. Very decided relief was afforded the patient 
in every instance. Mucilaginous drinks in small quantity, iced if 
desired; cold douche to the head; stimulating frictions, as pepper 
and hot brandy to the extremities, when the capillary circulation 
was languid, were used with advantage. After total suppression of 74 
urine no case got well. Where the secretion was suspended for 
a few hours, or passed in small quantity, the infusion of uva ursi, 
with sup. carb, of soda, was given with happy results. In fact, it 
did not fail in my hands to restore this function to its normal 
standard. No particular remedy was relied on to check the ejec- 
tion of black vomit. After the febrile stage had subsided and the 
period of prostration came on, nourishing diet and stimulants to 
support the strength of the patient; chicken water and arrowroot 
often but in small portions ; brandy, porter, and ale, according 
to the taste. Without wearying your patience any farther 1 will 
finish by stating the number of cases that occurred both here and 
in the vicinity. There were in all seventy attacks of yellow fever, 
as follows:- 
Attacks-whites, 40; colored, 30-total, 70. Deaths-whites, 9; 
colored, 4-total, 13. 
Hoping you may find something in this communication that will 
in some degree aid you in making out your final report to the 
Medical Association, I am, with high regard and the best wishes 
for your future prosperity and happiness, 
Your friend, 
J. S. BEAZLEY. 
VIII.-On the Topography, Climate, and Diseases of Washington, Texas. 
By T. J. Heard, M. D. 
[The following paper from the border of the yellow fever area 
will be found interesting, as it touches upon the origin and rela- 
tionship of the different types of endemic fever.-E. D. F.] 
Washington, Texas, Feb. 8th, 1856. 
Dr. E. D. Fenner-Dear Sir: Dr. E. H. Hubbey told me a few 
days since, that you wished a paper from me on Yellow Fever. 1 
have seen but little of the disease here; consequently, cannot have 
much to communicate on that subject as the result of my own 
observation; but I will give you an outline of my medical obser- 
vations at this place, and if you find anything therein of any value 
to the medical public, you are at liberty to use it as you think 
proper. 
I will in the first place briefly allude to the topography of this 
town. It is situated in about 30° 20' north latitude; 100 miles 
from the city of Galveston, and about 150 feet above the Gulf of 75 
Mexico. It is on the southwest side of the Brazos River, and 
opposite the junction of the Brazos and the Navasota. 
The town is situated on a number of large hills, irregularly- 
arranged, and bluffing up to within 100 yards of the river. The 
river bank is about 50 feet high above low water mark. The hills 
are so situated as to permit all refuse to run off the streets, being 
swept off either on to the beach of red alluvium at the foot of the 
hills, or into the river. The Brazos bottom is composed mainly of 
red alluvial loam, abounding in terrestrial testacea, vegetable 
mould, &c., and varies from three to five miles in width. The river 
bank on the bluff shores, to a depth of fifty feet or more, has 
identically the same appearance and composition as on the surface. 
The red loam and vegetable mould lie in regular alternate strata, 
though the strata differ in thickness as determined by the depth of 
water over the bottom and the number of days it has been sub- 
merged by each inundation. 
The surface of the town site when first settled had the appear- 
ance of being little else than white sand. The stratum of sand 
varies from one to three feet in thickness. Below this there is a 
stratum of marl, with here and there sections of red clay and con- 
glomerate sandstone to a depth varying from ten to fifteen feet; 
and beneath this we have hardly anything but white sand, and 
occasionally sandstone. At a depth of from 30 to 70 feet large 
quantities of fossils are found, composed, not only of shells, but the 
bones of land animals, not only of the known but the extinct also. 
The rocks in this section are all conglomerate sandstone, abound- 
ing in water-worn pebbles and shells, chiefly marine. Springs are 
abundant in this section, and occur in almost every place where the 
rocks crop out, but the water is very impure, being impregnated 
with calcareous, argillaceous, and other mineral substances. Here, 
those who use spring or well water are not so healthy as are those 
who use cistern water. 
I will next cursorily allude to the early settlement of this place, 
and to disease as it was then, and as it has been modified since, up 
to this time. In 1820 and 1821, Mr. Andrew Robinson made a 
settlement on the river bank half a mile below the present town- 
site. He made it his home until 1833. He used river water prin- 
cipally (which is brackish), and had but little disease in his family. 
In 1834, the present site was laid out into lots, and sundry im- 
provements were made. The site on which the town is situated 
was densely timbered with post oak and thick hammock under- 76 
growth. When the country was invaded in the spring of 1836, 
the population of the town was about 200. They nearly all fled 
before the invading army of Mexico, and had not all returned when 
I settled here in the fall of 1837. I was informed by the Hon. 
Anson Jones, M.D., and Mr. James B. Miller, that the diseases of the 
country prior to the time of my settling here, were simple in cha- 
racter and easily treated. They had both practised on the Brazos 
some ten or fifteen years before I came to the country. They 
treated cholera in Brazoria County at and near the mouth of the 
river in 1832 and 1833, but had never seen a case of it in the inte- 
rior. Intermitting and remitting fevers were the diseases they 
chiefly had to contend with. 
When I came here in 1837, the population of the town was about 
500 citizens. Transient persons to a great number, consisting of 
disbanded soldiers, and adventurers from the States and Europe, 
flocked in rapidly. 
The town tract, about one mile square, was strewed with the 
boughs of the trees that had been felled for building, and other 
purposes. We lived badly. We were neither well fed nor com- 
fortably housed, and we drank bad water; hence, we had a great 
deal of disease, consisting mostly of intermitting and remitting 
fevers, with some cases of diarrhoea and dysentery. 
The great quantity of vegetable matter in a state of decay, not 
only the boughs of the fallen trees, but a great amount of vegetable 
mould on the surface which had been for ages accumulating, and 
had been in the mean time sheltered from the rays of the sun, were 
at once exposed to his direct rays. From these causes poisonous 
emanations took place to a great amount, and sickened every per- 
son in town. This state continued until 1843, with very little 
variation. To pass a season in our town without one or more 
attacks of fever was almost a miracle, though our fevers were 
almost in every instance open and mild and readily yielded to 
treatment. 
1843 is long to be remembered by old Texans. It rained almost 
the entire year. Our prevailing winds here are from the south, 
and our country is almost always healthy while they are regularly 
from that direction. But this year there was no regularity in 
them; we had no regular currents in the atmosphere. The winds 
amounted to little more than an ebb and flow. The clouds Were 
often stratified, sometimes as many as three or four strata moving 
in different directions. The alternations of temperature were great. 77 
Suffice it to say, disease was sown broadcast. Everybody was 
sick, and the fevers put on different livery from anything I had 
seen before. Ordinary congestive fever was common and of the 
most fearful type; the algid was by no means uncommon. With 
the return of cold weather, health was again restored to our popu- 
lation. 
1844 and 1845 were only remarkable in one particular. Our 
town, in common with the country, suffered greatly from an ery- 
sipelatous fever, or what is ordinarily known as " black tongue." The 
mortality among the aged, the infirm, children, and the intempe- 
rate, was very great. This disease prevailed in the winter and 
early spring. 
In 1846,1847, and 1848, there was nothing worthy of note. In 
1846-7, there was a great deal of tonsillitis, pharyngitis, and such 
like afflictions. The ordinary fevers of the country have progress- 
ively declined both in frequency and intensity since 1843. 
In 1848 and 1849, we had an epidemic of scarlatina. 
In 1849 and 1850, a great number of cases of cholera were 
brought, mostly by steamboats. The mortality was considerable, 
mostly among negroes. Our citizens suffered a good deal from 
choleraic diarrhoea, but none died. 
In the fall of 1850, typhoid fever first became manifest here, and 
has continued more or less up to this time, 1856. 
1851. This year was healthy, with the exception of typhoid 
fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, and such like, until September, when in 
the course of a few days nearly our whole population (1000 to 1200) 
were prostrate with dengue. 
1852. A very healthy year, with the exception of a few cases 
of typhoid fever, and a return, of dengue in the fall, when all had it 
who had not suffered from it in 1851. The Baptists held an asso- 
ciation here in the fall, and nearly every person who had not had 
the dengue previously, contracted it; but it did not develop itself 
until they returned to the country, and I never heard of an instance 
in which the disease was communicated (by those who contracted 
it here) to any person in the country. 
I will here make a few remarks about dengue. It has occurred 
to me that there is a close analogy between it and yellow fever. 
This is shown in the violence of the attack, it being a disease of 
but one paroxysm; the intensity of the pains, the general expres- 
sion of the patient, as red, wild eyes; flushed face, &c., and what 
attracted my attention particularly, was the hemorrhagic tendency, 78 
especially among the females. In nearly all the females I treated, 
they suffered more or less on the subsidence of the disease from 
uterine hemorrhage. 
1853. A few cases of typhoid, and hardly any other fever of 
any kind. On the 5th September, three gentlemen visited this 
place; two of them were from Galveston, and one from Harris- 
burg. They had been out from home ten days, and had left on 
account of the yellow fever, which was making great havoc in 
Galveston and Houston. They were all attacked at the hotel about 
the same time, of what I have no hesitancy in pronouncing yellow 
fever. They recovered soon, and the disease was not communicated 
to any person in the hotel. 
On the 27th September I was called to sec Mr. H., an English- 
man, at 12 o'clock M. I found him profoundly comatose, breath- 
ing natural, pulse about 100 and weak, head and body hot, ex- 
tremities quite cool, and bathed in cool perspiration. His wife 
informed me that he had complained for two days of great pains in 
his head and back; that on the day before I was called in he had 
gone out and finished a job; but that he complained very much 
when he returned at night, took no supper, slept little or none, but 
rose in the morning early; brought a bucket of water, seemed to 
be exhausted, fell down on the bed, and soon became quiet, and 
when she tried to get him to take some breakfast, she found him 
insensible. I found that our Episcopal minister had been with him 
some hours before I was called. 
We did everything we could for him, but did not succeed in 
getting him out of the comatose state in which I found him until 
next morning, when he sat up in bed and talked rationally for 
three or four hours, when he relapsed into a comatose state, and 
died about 6 P. M. After death he was the yellowest cadaver I 
ever saw. 
He had lived in the suburbs of the town, and hardly ever went 
out anywhere, but to his work and back home again; was a man of 
good habits, had been a resident of our place two years, and was 
uniformly healthy. Now, did this man contract the disease 
(if it was yellow fever that he died of) from an Englishman, 
Mr. B., and his wife, who told me that they both had had the dis- 
ease in New Orleans a month or six weeks before Mr. H. was at- 
tacked ? They came to Mr. H.'s house with some of their baggage, 
and occupied the same room with Mr. H. and family, eight or ten 
days before Mr. 11. was attacked. After the death of Mr. II., his 79 
widow and two children had a mild attack of a continued form of 
fever, but the disease spread no farther in this quarter, notwith- 
standing from two to half-a-dozen persons were constantly with the 
poor man, from the time I was called to him until he was buried. 
October 1st, I was called to Mr. N. He occupied the first story 
of a brick house, the floor of which is laid on the ground. He 
used the room (say 50 by 25 feet), for a billiard and drinking 
saloon. Those who drank spirits at his bar were in the habit of 
tossing out spirits or water, &c., on the floor; this kept the earth 
under the floor constantly saturated with the refuse from his bar. 
He was in the habit of receiving ice every week from Houston, and 
of keeping it in his bar-room. It was moreover his custom to sleep 
during the day and sit up the principal part of the night; during 
the night the house was almost constantly closed, during which he 
breathed over and over again the noxious exhalations from beneath 
the floor, to say nothing of the deterioration the air of the room 
underwent from being crowded with a great number of persons 
drinking, smoking, &c. But to the case. He had a severe ague 
before I saw him, and was reacting when I reached him; was de- 
lirious; face very much flushed; eyes red and watery; pulse 110, 
strong and full; tongue moist, coated as with white paste: great 
irritability of the stomach. Suffice it to say, I treated him 
promptly; gave him the usual treatment for yellow fever, and had 
him in a good general perspiration in four hours; that he was 
almost without fever from the third day, and by the fifth had some 
return of appetite. But his nurse neglected him; a norther sprang 
up, he got chilled and relapsed, and came very near dying, but 
finally got well. Although he had not the least evidence of ptyal- 
ism, he had considerable hemorrhage from his gums, nose, and the 
blistered surfaces. Did he contract the disease from the blankets, 
sawdust, &c., in which the ice was enveloped ? We had no other 
cases in town this fall. 
1854. This year, with the exception of typhoid fever, and some 
other affections not worthy of note, was very healthy until the 5th 
of October, when I was called in consultation with Dr. Black to see 
Mr. 0. He had unmistakable symptoms of yellow fever. He died 
on the fifth day with black vomit, and became very yellow after 
death. Before death he had hemorrhages from his gums, nose, and 
a blister over the epigastrium. He had not been to Houston or 
any other place where the disease was then prevailing, for several 
months. 80 
10th October, I had two cases, Mr. L. and Mr. J. They both 
occupied the same part of the town in which Mr. G. passed most of 
his time during the day, and often until bedtime, viz., the house of 
Austin and Bertrand, a brick house, with a brick wareroom back, 
and immediately adjoining the building. The wareroom was at 
the time in a very leaky and filthy condition; not only so, but an 
extensive foundation was made but a short time before, for two 
large brick houses immediately adjoining the house of Austin and 
Bertrand. In digging out the foundation, a large quantity of earth 
was thrown out, it being about three feet to clay. The lot having 
laid vacant for eighteen or twenty years, and being about the centre 
of the town, and situated between two of the largest business houses 
in the place, it is but reasonable that a great quantity of impurities 
of one kind or other had percolated through the sand to the clay, 
and that when exposed those noxious exhalations from the earth 
would contaminate the atmosphere for some distance around. Be 
this as it may, at this spot the three first cases occurred. 
October 17th, I was called to one case from Houston. I treated 
the case in the suburbs of the town ; no member of the family nor 
any person that waited on the patient contracted the disease. Mr. 
B. contracted the disease here, and left for the West, and died on 
the fourth day of his illness, with black vomit. 
30th October, one case. November 5th, three cases, two mulat- 
toes and one negro. These cases occurred within twenty feet of 
Asutin and Bertrand's wareroom. 6th, our postmaster was at- 
tacked. 7th, his assistant; also Mrs. S. 8th, three cases. 10th, 
one case. 12th, norther; temperature 30°.-Of the above four died 
and three had black vomit. 
I will bring this paper, which is already too long, to a close. 
But before doing so, I will state that yellow fever has prevailed 
more or less almost every year since 1839, in Houston; that our 
intercourse both by mail and otherwise has been almost daily, and 
that although we have had cases brought into our midst, repeatedly, 
the disease has never spread. Secondly; that as intermitting, re- 
mitting, and such affections have become less common, diseases 
entirely different from them have apparently come in their stead. 
Thirdly; that fevers identically the same that we suffered so much 
of, from 1837 until 1844, are very common within a few miles of 
this town, where persons are felling the forest and making farms, 
either in the Brazos bottoms, or in hammock land. Fourthly; that 
dengue did not prevail in any of the towns near this, in 1851 and 81 
1852, although the places have all been built during the last nine 
or ten years; and in all of them they suffer considerably yet from 
the ordinary fevers of the country. 
Then, is it not a fact, that in countries where the ordinary mias- 
matic fevers prevail to any considerable extent, just in proportion 
as men remove the influences that give rise to them, typhoid fever, 
dengue, and yellow fever become more common ? In other words, 
that the causes of what are known as miasmatic fevers lie latent in 
our forests, &c., and man, in reducing the forest to a state of culti- 
vation, renders those causes active; and after a few years those 
causes are either decomposed or dissipated by the direct rays of the 
sun, or swept away by the rain. Then, is it not reasonable, judging 
by the facts we have before us, that through the agency of man, 
causes are generated or developed which, when in sufficient con- 
centration, will produce dengue, and typhoid fever, or when still 
more multiplied, will cause that great scourge of our country yellow 
fever ? 
Yours respectfully, 
T. J. HEARD. 
IX.- Yellow Fever at Jeanerrett's, Parish of St. Mary, La. By 
J. B. Dungan, M. D. 
I was called on the 7th of October, 1854, to the house of Leon 
Erilot, f. m. c., five miles below New Iberia, to see a Jew peddler, 
Lazare Levi, unacclimated, eight months in the country. He was 
lying in a room at the north end of the back gallery. Had spent 
four days in Franklin; whilst in Franklin, had visited several 
times at the house of Solomon Levi, in whose family several cases 
of yellow fever had occurred, and one or two deaths. Came to 
Leon Frilot's on the 3d of October, was taken with fever on the 
morning of the 4th, and died on the 9th, of black vomit. 
His cart had not been to Franklin, but was standing, previous to 
and during his illness, near the house. The goods in the cart had 
been bought (I was told) at some country store above St. Martins- 
ville. He brought no goods from Franklin. 
Immediately after his death the body was taken off for burial; 
the bed and bedding were burned; every article of furniture 
taken out of doors, the room washed, whitewashed, lime sprinkled 
on the floor, and left open and unoccupied for five or six weeks. A 
trunk of clothes belonging to Honore, f. m. c., was under the bed 
during the illness of the peddler; after his death it was carried out, 82 
opened and exposed to the sun for a few hours, and was then de- 
posited in a room on the opposite or south end of the gallery, an 
open space intervening between the two rooms. 
No case of sickness occurred in the family until the 29th of Oc- 
tober, when I was called to see the wife of Alfred Olivier, f. m. c. 
This young woman was living in the family, but as soon as the 
peddler's case was pronounced yellow fever, she left the house and 
did not return until the 26th. She was taken sick on the 29th, 
had mild yellow fever, and recovered. 
On the 30th, the wife of Leon Frilot sickened; had black vomit, 
and died on the 12th day of her illness. 
On the same day, Leon sent his children with a negro boy about 
12 years old to the house of his brother Aimd, about a mile distant 
on the opposite side of the Teche. 
On the 31st, his daughter, aged 13, and the little negro boy, 
sickened with the fever. The former died on the third day with 
black vomit, and the latter recovered. 
No cases of the fever occurred in Aime's family. 
Between the 1st and 22d of November eight or ten cases of the 
fever occurred among the free mulattoes at the house of Leon Frilot, 
and among the slaves belonging to the plantation, all of whom re- 
covered, with the exception of Honore, f. m. c., the owner of the 
trunk above alluded to. 
Being absent myself, this man was seen on the 11th of Novem- 
ber by Dr. Duperier, who considered the case one of yellow fever. 
I saw him after his death, on the 13th, at 9 P. M., and was shown 
about two quarts of bright florid blood which he had vomited 
shortly before his death. This man was intemperate, though pre- 
viously enjoying good health; he was walking about most of the 
time until a few hours previous to his death, frequently throwing 
up blood. Whether he died of yellow fever or not I cannot say. 
The last case of fever that occurred on the place assumed an in- 
termittent form. 
Dr. Duperier, who attended these cases in conjunction with my- 
self, and during my absence of several days, had the fever and 
recovered. 
Dr. Maguire called once to see the peddler, and again for a few 
minutes to see the cases of the free mulattoes. He was attacked on 
the same evening of the last visit, and after a serious illness re- 
covered. The writer escaped, although he has never had yellow fever. 
As to the locality in which these cases occurred, the house is 83 
situated on a high, dry, and airy locality, on the west bank of the 
Teche, and disconnected with any other buildings except the 
kitchen, which is within a few feet of the house. 
There were no local causes assignable for the origin and spread 
of the disease. The house, although old, is comfortable and airy, 
and the family as neat and cleanly in their habits as whites in the 
same circumstances. 
The negro quarter is situated about fifty rods from the house, 
and contained twelve or fifteen head of negroes. 
The surrounding plantations were remarkably healthy during 
the prevalence of the epidemic on that place. 
Some cases of what the physicians called dengue had occurred 
at New Iberia, previously to the outburst of yellow fever on this 
place, but they were probably mild cases of yellow fever. But, so 
far as I could learn, this family had had no communication with 
that place. 
I furnish the above facts without any comment. 
P. S. The second case (Alfred Olivier's wife), during her ab- 
sence from Leon's house, passed the time with one of the neighbors, 
and had no communication with any suspected locality. 
X.- Yellow Fever at Brandon, Mississippi, in 1853 and 1854. By 
J. J. Thornton, M. D. 
[The following interesting letter will show how this disease broke 
out and prevailed at a village of about one thousand inhabitants, 
situated far in the interior of the country, and in a high piny- 
woods region. Dr. Thornton seems to think it attributable chiefly 
to local influences, though he admits that some of the first cases had 
been exposed in an infected district. A long and interesting ac- 
count of this epidemic was published in the Brandon Republican, by 
Dr. W. Reber, in which the writer takes somewhat different grounds 
from Dr. Thornton. He admits the existence of extraordinary local 
conditions in Brandon when the epidemic appeared, but, at the 
same time, thinks much is due to intercourse with infected dis- 
tricts.-E. D. F.] 
Brandon, Mi., Jan. 8th, 1855. 
Dr. E. D. Fenner- 
Dear Sir : I received your note and much valued present on 
last week, and, but for my engagements, should have replied sooner. 
I will now endeavor to give you a brief history, as you have re- 84 
quested, of the fever of both 1853 and 1854. The first case that 
ever was seen in this place was R. L., get. 20, a native of this State. 
He visited Jackson, as conductor on the cars, a week previous to 
taking the fever, which was on the 15th of September, 1853; had 
black vomit and turned yellow, and died on the seventh day of 
sickness. Quite a number of persons visited him and many lived 
in the same house and nursed him, yet there were no cases traceable 
to this as an infecting cause. 
Case 2. A negro, aged 30, taken Sept. 20th, discharged 27th; 
eyes very yellow. Three others were sleeping in the same room, 
but no other case occurred in the house, which is distant from the 
residence of the first case three hundred yards, one dwelling be- 
tween. 
Case 3. D. E., aged 19, native of the State, taken Sept. 26th, dis- 
charged Oct. 4th, though he was several weeks in regaining his 
strength. 
Case 4. J. S., aged 17, taken Oct. 3d; came here two weeks pre- 
viously from Jackson; died on the 8th. He had black vomit, and 
had large black discharges from the bowels; eyes were a little 
yellow, skin not, but congested at the clavicles. This case had no 
communication with either of the others. A negro boy was sick 
with intermittent fever in the same room and nursed him, but had 
no symptoms of yellow fever. 
Case 5. Dr. J. H. B., aged 29, taken Oct. 20th, died on the 26th. 
He had vomit of reddish flakes and turned yellow. 
Case 6. G. Me., aged 31, taken 23d, well on 31st. In same 
house with fifth case. 
Case 7. C. V., aged 24, taken 26th, well in twelve days. In 
same house with two last cases; had nursed both; hemorrhage from 
gums and lips. Several whites and negroes nursed these cases; 
none were sick. 
Case 8. E. M., taken Oct. 24th, died on seventh day; was very 
yellow, and had black vomit. This patient was a native of Virginia; 
here twelve months; had not been to see any sick; was temperate 
and robust. 
Case 9. E. S., aged 50; taken Nov. 2d; turned yellow second 
day; had hemorrhage from gums; died the 7th; had black vomit. 
This man, a blacksmith, did not work within half a mile of any of 
the above cases, nor had he visited one; he slept out of town, and 
was temperate, not even using tobacco. 
Case 10. H. G., taken Nov. 4th; worked in the same house with 85 
the above; wheelwright by trade. The shop was on the cut of the 
railroad, and there had been put near the shop, two years or more 
before, a great deal of sand from the cut. This sand washed down 
into a pond at the foot of the hill after every rain. The pond is 
some hundred and fifty yards west of the shop. H. G. lived ad- 
joining the shop on the east. He died on the seventh or eighth 
day of illness; was yellow. No other case occurred in the house 
or shop, although five others were exposed. 
Case 11. W. S., aged 18, taken about this time. He slept in the 
same bed that E. M. (Case 8) was taken sick in, who had been re- 
moved to a distant part of the town when he died, no other case 
occurring there afterwards. W. S. was removed also from the 
store to the east of the town, and died on the sixth or seventh day 
with black vomit. One case occurred in the house, but recovered. 
This was the proprietor of the store where the two clerks (E. M. 
and W. S.) were taken, who spent most of the day there, sleeping 
at the house. Quite a large family lived in the house, but none 
took the disease, though many more were in the room than the 
proprietor, who did have it lightly. 
There were other cases, but nothing either in type or locality to 
call for a description. In 1851 there were considerable changes 
made in the whole surface of our streets and many lots. A cut 
through the town, sixty-five feet deep and a quarter of a mile long, 
furnished dirt to fill up all washed places and to level streets, even 
to fill up valleys. The banks of the cut, as well as the dirt taken 
from it, have been constantly washing out and offering a new face 
at each rain. The cut is on the south of all the fever cases, but 
where they occurred there had been a deposit from the cut or a 
removal of the top soil. 
1854. We had one of the healthiest summers and falls, till the 
first of October, 1854, that has ever been known in this town, and 
it remained healthy in the country around to the close of the year. 
We had a good deal of rain in the months of May and June, though 
not longer than a day and night at a time, soon drying up when 
the sun came out. The summer was not exceedingly hot, the ther- 
mometer not often getting as high as 90° in the shade. In August, 
the winds set in from the east and remained from that quarter most 
of the time till the middle of November, when north and west 
winds prevailed. The first case of yellow fever that occurred this 
year was a mile and a half southwest of town-taken about Sept. 
23d, died on the ninth day of sickness, had black vomit two days 86 
before he died; was very yellow-but, as his symptoms had been 
very mild for the first few days, and not being able to trace him to 
any place where fever had made its appearance, and as no case had 
yet been in Brandon-I for one was of the opinion that it was an 
aggravated, or perhaps mismanaged case of bilious remittent fever; 
no other case occurred at the plantation. There were some twenty 
on the place, black and white; some four or five acted as nurses; 
he was also visited by a good many persons, and not one took the 
fever. 
Case 2. W. B., aged 27; late from Michigan, taken sick Oct. 
2d in Vicksburg, on his way to this place; arrived Tuesday; died 
on the sixth or seventh day of sickness. 
Oct. 3d. Numerous cases now occurred, and chiefly in the north 
and west part of the town, where the dwellings were much crowded 
for a village. H. V. S. was taken, and, in quick succession, six 
other cases in the same house, two of which died. One had black 
vomit; nearly all got yellow, and had hemorrhage from some part 
of the mucous membrane. The next house on the west had three 
light cases, two whites. A negro man was removed half a mile 
south; also recovered. The next house had four cases, three whites 
and a mulatto woman; all got well. The next house was north- 
west-had no case to originate in it, but I had a case moved there 
which died. No other in the house, although some eight or ten 
black and white were there till his death. No black vomit and no 
yellowness; yet as well-marked a case as I saw, in other respects. 
Had bleeding from gums, and his arm broke out afresh after my 
having bled him some eight hours previous. 
The next house north of this had three cases; all died. One, a 
relapse case, having had the disease the first or second week in 
October, relapsed two weeks after and died. He was thought by 
his physician to have had the fever last year (1853). I did not see 
him last year, but I saw his first attack this year, and did not be- 
lieve he had it. All the cases here mentioned were the most tem- 
perate and least exposed of our citizens, excepting the cases that 
came on a little before and at the same time with theirs. 
The next case was dissipated; had a light attack; was well in 
seven days. 
About this time, some ten or more negroes were attacked in and 
around the public square, the scene of extensive grading and filling, 
which is to the east of nearly all the cases; none of the negroes 
died, none had black vomit; some other cases came on about No- 87 
vember, and lasted till the 17th or 18th. Some few died, but most 
recovered. 
The disease was confined to the region of town west and a little 
south of the grading, which has been extensive the past year, 
chiefly done in July and August. This, taken in connection with 
the vast railroad cut and exposure of the dirt taken from it, I think, 
furnish a local cause sufficient, without looking further. That it 
was not contagious I am satisfied, from these facts-whenever a case, 
taken in town, was removed to the country, or just out in the envi- 
rons, it was more liable to get well; and even if it died, no other 
case occurred either in the same house or neighborhood. Secondly, 
even in the locality where, I believe, it originated, no nurse or phy- 
sician took the fever; while, at the same time, those who lived here 
and slept here took the disease. 
Had it been infectious, there were goods just in from New Orleans, 
and being opened; yet no case occurred in those stores, and only 
one in any store, and that house purchased goods in New York. 
There was but one nurse who took the disease, and he was an 
Irishman who had been here some fifteen years, and slept in the 
district southwest of the Grading, at the head of a hollow which 
conducted the easterly wind freely into his bedroom. But one 
nurse had had the fever last year, and that one had symptoms of 
the disease again this year. 
A hue and cry was made about the cars running to town from 
Jackson, on the plea that they introduced the disease shut up in 
them; still, no railroad hand, clerk, or deputy took the disease at 
all till the disease was nearly gone from among us, and he, a negro, 
had been sick with chills, rode ten miles at night in the stage to see 
his wife, and sent for me next day. He then had yellow fever, and 
recovered on the seventh day. This case was sick in the house 
occupied by forty negroes, men, women, and children, not one of 
whom had ever had it, nor did one take it. 
My treatment was simple. In the outset, to open the bowels, 
which were usually costive; I gave oil, calomel, salts, or compound 
cathartic pill, either one. The stools were always the same, no 
matter which was used, dark, bilious, and fetid. Warm teas or 
cold drinks and ice; hot foot-baths, enemas, and sponging with 
hop-tea and brandy; blisters and the emulsion with creasote; for 
sick stomach, ale, brandy, champagne-in fact, the least treatment 
the better, only to keep the patient as comfortable as possible. 
Dear Sir: I have thus hastily tried to give a correct narrative of 88 
facts, and given my views in few words. Time does not permit of 
my looking over this to make corrections of any kind. Take the 
above history for what it is worth; you, perhaps, can find and col- 
late the useful, if there be any. Respectfully, 
J. J. THORNTON. 
XI.- Yellow Fever at the Village of Cloutierville, La., in the years 
1853 and 1854. By S. 0. Scruggs, M. D. 
[The following remarkable letter will doubtless be read with in- 
terest. It is to be regretted that the writer did not state more 
distinctly his method of giving the sulphate of iron in yellow fever 
before he began to prescribe the muriated tincture. The results of 
his heroic doses of the latter medicine are certainly very remark- 
able. I also received a letter from Dr. W. H. M'Craven, of Galveston, 
Texas, giving some very happy results obtained from the muriated 
tincture of iron in yellow fever, but do not feel fully authorized to 
publish it. Dr. Scruggs gives some striking facts, showing the 
transportability and infectiousness of yellow fever. The village of 
Cloutierville is situated on or near Red River, between Alexandria 
and Shreveport.-E. D. F.] 
Cloutierville, La., April 6, 1855. 
Dr. E. D. Fenner- 
Dear Sir : I have just reached home, and, in compliance with 
your request, hasten to give you the information you desired. 
The first case of yellow fever, out of the city of New Orleans, that 
occurred in the little village of Cloutierville, near which I reside, was 
on the 14th of August, 1853. I was called to it on the afternoon 
of the second day, and pronounced it, unhesitatingly, typhus; pre- 
dicating my opinion not only upon the symptoms presented, which 
were decidedly of that character, but from the fact that the case was 
in a room ten by fourteen feet square, in which eleven human beings 
(Germans, and not remarkably cleanly) were living, with but a 
small window and contracted portal to ventilate the meagre apart- 
ment. The next morning, without my knowledge, the patient was 
removed to the garret of the building, to be, as his friends informed 
me, a little more comfortable. I found him sitting up in bed, and 
asked him how he felt. He replied to me in German, as he spoke 
neither English nor French, that he was better as to his headache, 
but that he was very thirsty. Upon examination, I found his con- 
dition pretty much the same as the day before, only a greater degree 
of turgescence of the face. I left him, and returned on the next 89 
morning at 10 o'clock, and found him extremely restless. I made 
the same inquiry, as to how he felt, as I had done the day before, 
but he made no reply. I placed my finger upon his pulse, but had 
scarcely touched it when, with a convulsive motion, he ejected a 
volume of black vomit over my entire person, which showed the 
more prominently from the fact that I was clad in white vest and 
pants. As a matter of course, it flashed upon me at once that my 
patient had the yellow fever, and not typhus, as I had diagnosed 
when I first saw him. Descending below, I made inquiry of his 
friends how long he had been from New Orleans, and was informed 
that it had been four months. This announcement staggered me for 
a moment, and without reflection, I concluded that it was sporadic. 
In the afternoon of the same day I returned to the house to ask 
how long it had been since their goods were opened, and by whom 
they were opened, and how long since the goods had been shipped 
from New Orleans; and was informed that my patient first opened 
them, assisted by Frank and Kohn, about ten days before, and that 
it had been fifteen days since the goods were packed in the city, 
and that the three who had gone down to purchase had each perished 
with yellow fever. My patient died shortly after I left the house, 
and knowing as I did how fearfully the epidemic was raging in 
your city, it occurred to me that the disease might have been brought 
up the country in those goods, although the contagion of yellow fever 
had been so often denied by those of the profession whose peculiar 
locations had given them ample opportunities of investigation. It 
was not long, however, before I became convinced that the disease 
had been imported in those goods, and that yellow fever was an in- 
fectious disease; and, before I conclude, I will present you the 
grounds upon which I predicate my opinion. 
Had no other case occurred but the one I have recorded, I should 
have regarded it simply in a sporadic light, and have thought but lit- 
tle more about it; but the disease, in a very short time, assumed a 
most malignant and desolating form. At the time that the first 
case occurred, there were ninety-one inhabitants of the town, but be- 
fore the disease abated sixty-eight died, the first three of whom were 
the very three who opened the boxes of goods but a few days before. 
Some twelve days after the death of the first case I fell myself, and 
was unable to perform any duty until the 2d of October, and, as a 
consequence, I am unable to tell you what took place during the 
time I was confined to my bed, more than that upwards of fifty 90 
died. The epidemic continued in the surrounding country until 
the 14th of December. 
Now, as to its contagion, or rather infection. In the first place, 
Cloutierville is isolated in a very great degree, being located upon 
La Riviere aux Cannes, or Cane River, a portion of Red River, that 
is navigable for boats but a few months in the year, and particu- 
larly in the year 1853, there had not been a steamboat at her land- 
ing for more than six weeks. Now, is it probable that a disease like 
the yellow fever should have developed itself naturally in our midst, 
decimating the village and desolating the country, when not one of 
the causes of its production exists ? Why is it that this ill-fated 
little village has never been visited before by yellow fever, when 
nearly every other town where steamboats ply during the preva- 
lence of the disease in New Orleans has been attacked by it? The 
disease has visited Alexandria and Natchitoches more than once, 
and it is strange to me that they do not have it oftener, particularly 
Alexandria, where the steamboats are constantly landing. I cer- 
tainly know of no local cause for yellow fever in and about Clou- 
tierville. My plantation and that of Mr. A. Lecompt surrounds it, 
and neither of us have a lagoon or lake upon our respective 
places, nor is there a marsh in any direction contiguous to the vil- 
lage. Where, then, did the terrible disease have its origin in 1853, 
but in those identical goods ? How did it happen that the disease 
was confined at first to the very spot, and the only one from which 
we can fix a cause for its appearance ? And why is it that the 
first three who had it and died were the same three who were en- 
gaged in opening the goods purchased but ten or fifteen days before 
in the city of New Orleans, and in a store where all the inmates 
save one died, together with the three purchasers of the goods who 
resided in Cloutierville, and that, too, during the prevalence of the 
most fatal yellow fever epidemic with which your unfortunate city 
•was ever cursed? What does such evidence teach us? But, 
again, shortly after my recovery, I was upon a visit to a friend 
some twenty-five miles from my home, when I was requested by 
the physician of my friend's family to visit with him a case he had 
in the pine woods, a distance of about four miles, which, he said, 
presented some peculiar characteristics. I did so, and pronounced 
it yellow fever. As well as I now remember, the patient was a 
German peddler, and died the next day after I saw him, with black 
vomit. The family, at whose humble, but hospitable mansion the 
poor stranger had fallen a victim, consisted, I think, of five; four of 91 
whom died within fourteen days of the German, and not another case 
occurred in the neighborhood. The German evidently contracted the 
disease in the town of Natchitoches. Now, sir, here we have black 
vomit occurring in the pine woods, in an individual who had been 
where the disease was raging; and an entire family destroyed by 
the same disease; yet neither of them had been within twenty miles 
of the disease in any direction, nor ever saw yellow fever until the 
poor peddler brought it in their midst. How did they get yellow 
fever? Why did not their neighbors have it ? Why, simply be- 
cause I proclaimed to all that the disease was infectious, and that by 
cutting off all communication we would be enabled, as Dr. Rush 
remarked in 1793, to " pen up the disease like a mad bull." Can 
any rational mind doubt for a moment that, if the poor German 
had never gone to that house, that the yellow fever would have 
ever desolated it ? 
The above instance, added to that of the goods in my own vil- 
lage, fortified my opinion that the disease was infectious, and had it 
not, two other circumstances which I will detail, were 
" confirmation strong 
As proofs of Holy Writ" 
that it was emphatically so. On the opposite side of Red River 
proper, commonly called the Bon Dien, a kind of neighborhood 
quarantine had been kept up in the pine woods, during the preva- 
lence of the epidemic in Cloutierville, and no one was allowed to 
pass within a certain distance of one of the houses? One of the 
neighbors whilst on guard met with a woodcutter who had been 
to Alexandria, but who said he had been for two days at the house 
of a gentleman some twelve miles distant. The man told him to 
go on to the house, that he would be on himself after awhile. That 
very night the wood-chopper was taken with a chill, and in five 
days died with black vomit. All the neighbors, believing that it 
was nothing more than a simple case of fever, as he had been no- 
where to catch the "black vomit," visited him, and, in twenty 
days afterwards, there was but one left among all who resided in 
the neighborhood to tell the tale of the fearful ravages of the dis- 
ease. The wood-chopper had been living there for years, and was 
working for them at the commencement of the epidemic at Clou- 
tierville. Now, how did the wood-chopper get the disease? Why 
1 Nearly all who reside on that side of the river live by cutting and selling wood 
to the steamboats. 92 
he caught it in Alexandria. Well, how did the Perkins neighbor- 
hood get it, if it was not conveyed there by the laborer above 
mentioned? It could not have been carried there in any other 
way. A German peddler died about twelve miles from me, early in 
the epidemic, and the room in which he died was immediately 
closed. Some days afterwards, some friends of the family who 
occupied the house, arrived from Texas, and rather than put them 
in the bed where the peddler died, a young man of the family took 
it himself, and in eleven days afterwards he died of black vomit, 
and several others in the family were very ill. Now, it is very 
true, this family were very poor and filthy, and the young man 
slept in the very bed in which the peddler died, without its having 
been changed; but does not this very fact go as additional evidence 
to prove that the disease is infectious? I could multiply instances, 
but it is unnecessary. I have given you what I know to be facts, 
not what I heard. 
I come now to speak of my treatment, but especially the iron 
treatment. Early in the fall of 1853, or at least it was after the 
epidemic had been raging for some time in your city, that I stated, 
in a letter addressed to my lamented relative of Shreveport, Dr. R. 
L. Scruggs, that if ever I found an opportunity to treat yellow 
fever, I would not hesitate as to the remedy, and that remedy 
would be the pure chrys. sulph. ferri, an article for whose use I am 
indebted to my old personal friend, Dr. Robert Gayle, of your city, 
not in yellow fever, however, but in enlarged spleen. 
The first case I visited after my recovery was that of a particular 
friend. At the house of this friend, I will here remark, en passant, 
there was a stranger sick with yellow fever, and who was being 
treated by a French physician. 
A servant was just coming out of the sick man's chamber with a 
vessel of blood. Upon inquiry, I found out that the stranger had 
then been bled for the fourth time. It is useless for me to say to you 
that he died, together with twenty-eight others, under the lancet 
practice of the scientific French doctor. I mention this merely 
from the fact, that seeing the blood from the arm of the stranger, 
whom curiosity prompted me to look at, in going out of the house, 
but settled my conviction as to the iron remedy. 
To my friend I administered the iron and departed to visit three 
other patients, to all of whom I gave the same prescription. The 
following morning I visited them all, and found them doing better 93 
than I had any right to expect. I continued the iron and they all 
recovered. I did not lose a case after that out of upwards of forty. 
The following summer, 1854, the epidemic again made its ap- 
pearance in my neighborhood, but I was absent from home, and, 
unfortunately, had not here an opportunity of trying the relative 
value of the pure sulphate, and the mur. tinct. ferri which I greatly 
desired. 
During my voyage, however, I had a fine opportunity to test the 
tincture on board the steamboat upon which I ascended to St. Louis. 
The Mississippi was remarkably low and the boat heavily laden; 
and as a consequence, the trip up was a long and tedious one. 
Several cases of yellow fever occurred on board, all of which I 
treated with the tincture, and entirely successfully. My prescrip- 
tion was generally sixty minims every three hours, until eight doses 
were taken. 
Four days before my arrival at St. Louis, my servant, a very in- 
telligent fellow, took the disease. I prepared in a tumbler half an 
ounce of the tincture to four tablespoonfuls of water, giving him 
one dose only, intending to repeat it in the several periods of three 
hours; but being indisposed myself, I gave him my watch, stating 
to him that if I did not come in again in three hours he must 
take another tablespoonful of the mixture. I did not return but 
once, and that was too early for a repetition of the dose, but on my 
second visit, I found to my utter astonishment and alarm, that he 
had, instead of one tablespoonful, taken the entire quantity at one 
dose. I immediately asked him how long it had been since he took 
the potion; he replied "about an hour." I placed my finger upon 
his wrist, and found his skin moist, and his pulse, so far from an 
unusual excitement, had actually fallen from 121 to 102 during the 
interval of my last visit. In four hours more he had but little 
febrile excitement, and recovered rapidly. I would remark that he 
was very active in his attentions to the other cases which occurred 
on the boat during the voyage. 
This one isolated case proves one, if not two things, viz: that if 
the muriated tincture of iron is not a proper remedy in yellow 
fever, there is but little harm in the administration of it in heroic 
doses. 
Upon my return home, I was summoned as a witness in court, a 
distance of some thirty miles from my residence. Whilst there, a 
neighbor requested me to get permission from the judge, for a day 
only, that I might visit his hospital. I did so, paid the visit, and 94 
found two griffe servants, as I believed at the time, beyond all hopes 
of recovery. I ordered, as a dernier resort (having the case of my 
servant as a precedent), the following heroic prescription: Tinct. 
ferri muriat. oij; aqua fontis ^yj; M. One ounce of which to be 
given to each every two hours. I left immediately, requesting my 
friend to inform me of the result of my medicine, intimating to him, 
at the same time, that when they died I would be pleased to examine 
them. Confined as I was as a witness in court, I did not hear from 
my patients for four days, when, to my utter astonishment, I learned 
that they were both recovering. They did and are now 
well, and working as usual with the other negroes. These last two 
cases are all that I treated so valiantly, and whether they recovered 
in spite of my physic, or by its potential influence, the Omniscient 
only knows. 
Did you remark a peculiarity in regard to females, that, so soon 
as the attack came on, the menses made their appearance also, al- 
though they may have just passed naturally? In nearly every 
instance, up here, such was the fact. May this circumstance, from 
the peculiar condition in which the blood of yellow fever is always 
found, not throw some light upon the long vexed question of the 
menstrual discharge? I hope I shall hear from you soon. 
There is a circumstance (which, I think, deserves a passing notice) 
connected with the two epidemics of this region of country, that is 
certainly somewhat singular. Above me, about six miles, there is 
a large population of free colored people. During 1853 not one of 
them had yellow fever. Yet in 1854 the disease was confined almost 
entirely to them, and but one white person died, or even had it, who 
resided in the neighborhood, and who did not have it during the 
prevalence of the epidemic. 
I have thus, sir, in a rapid and hurried manner, complied with 
your request. Hoping that the inaccuracies consequent upon hur- 
ried composition may receive a charitable consideration at your 
hands, I remain 
Yours, truly, 
SAMUEL 0. SCRUGGS. 95 
[The subjoined sketch of the yellow fever at Norfolk and Ports- 
mouth was received in connection with the previous papers of the 
Appendix, and although it forms no part of the Eeport presented 
by Dr. Fenner to the Association, yet its interest and value will, in 
the opinion of the Committee, be regarded as an adequate reason 
for introducing it in this place.-Com. of Pub.] 
ON THE YELLOW FEVER OF NORFOLK AND PORTSMOUTH, VA.1 
BY E. D. FENNER, M. D. 
Some of your readers may be at a loss to discover an object suffi- 
cient to induce a practising physician of New Orleans to leave his 
own city, in the midst of an epidemic, and go abroad in search of 
a disease which for some years past has committed such dreadful 
havoc among the people of his immediate vicinity; and the same 
in respect to others, both acclimated and unacclimated, who, on 
hearing the cry of alarm and distress that went forth from Norfolk 
and Portsmouth, went not only from places where yellow fever is a 
common disease, but from many others, where it is either unknown, 
or has not prevailed in their day. I will endeavor to satisfy these 
searchers into human motives, for I deem the inquiry a very natu- 
ral one. 
I will 'say, then, that some were employed for the purpose and 
liberally compensated by their benevolent fellow-citizens at home. 
These were selected for their capacity and experience. Others, like- 
wise experienced and acclimated, hastened to the scene of distress, 
and cheerfully volunteered their services to the sufferers of every 
class. Whilst others, of bolder daring still, who had never either 
seen or suffered the disease, rushed into the midst of the pestilence, 
and, reckless of personal danger, begged the privilege of doing 
whatever they could to relieve their dying fellow-beings. How this 
latter class sacrificed themselves in the cause of suffering humanity, 
and how the others performed the duties assigned to or assumed by 
them, is not for me, but for the surviving citizens of Norfolk and 
Portsmouth, to say. Such, at least, were the leading motives, as far 
as I could judge, of the physicians from abroad who visited these 
places in the late epidemic. For myself, besides a desire to do some 
good, if it were in my power, I wished to see yellow fever at a dif- 
ferent place from New Orleans, where I had observed it closely for 
the last fourteen summers; and, as I remained at home until our 
1 From the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, November, 1855. 96 
epidemic had reached its maximum, I knew that my services could 
well be spared for the rest of the season. 
It is not my purpose, on the present occasion, to attempt to fur- 
nish you a full account of this epidemic, but only to make a few 
remarks upon some of its more prominent features and incidents. 
Long before reaching Portsmouth and Norfolk, we met the most 
frightful rumors of their sufferings, and when we arrived there ap- 
peared to be but little exaggeration in these flying reports. The 
stores were all closed, all the workshops were silenced, and the only 
appearance of activity visible was in the hurried movement of 
physicians' vehicles, and of persons in pursuit of medical aid and 
comforts for the sick. It was thought that more than half of the 
inhabitants of both places had fled from the impending danger, and 
I was truly glad to hear it, for I am well convinced that in occa- 
sional outbreaks of yellow fever the greatest safety will be found 
in flying from the infected district. In this instance, nearly all that 
remained were in continued apprehension of attack, for there were 
probably not a dozen persons in both places who were secure by 
having had the disease previously. Many had occasion to regret 
that they did not make an early retreat, and some went too late; 
they were attacked in other places, and, almost without an excep- 
tion, fell victims. 
When Dr. Beard and I arrived at Norfolk, we found the epidemic 
raging with terrific violence, and increasing from day to day. Some 
of the resident physicians were already down with the fever, two or 
three had died, and the rest were doing more labor than human 
nature could stand for any great length of time. Not a single one 
of them was acclimated, and therefore they all expected to be at- 
tacked sooner or later. Yet they stood their ground like true heroes, 
resolved to stand or fall at the post of duty. What rendered the 
case of these gentlemen worthy of more special sympathy and ad- 
miration was the fact that their devoted wives could not be per- 
suaded to leave them, but determined to remain and share their 
danger. 
How great these dangers were, may be learned from the fact that 
more than two-thirds of the resident physicians have fallen victims, 
and the others have narrowly escaped with their lives. 
At the time of our arrival, it was impossible for the medical force 
in attendance to do justice to the sick, and the disease was spreading 
so rapidly that the heart sickens at the contemplation of the state 
of things that must have come about, but for the valuable aid of 97 
various kinds that came pouring in from almost every section of 
the Union. But for these immense contributions in the way of 
money, provisions, physicians, nurses, medicines, coffins, &c., the 
citizens would, soon have been unable to attend their sick and bury 
their dead, and all who were able would have been compelled to fly 
away and leave their city in sole possession of putrefying corpses. 
Even with the assistance that came, it was found, difficult at one 
time to get the dead buried., and a few corpses remained out of the 
ground as long as thirty-six or forty-eight hours. 
When we got there we found one New Orleans physician, Dr. 
Penniston, already on the ground and doing immense labor. Dr. 
Stone had been there, but was only able to remain a few days. In 
a short time we had an ample medical corps, consisting of physicians 
from New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, Savannah, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, Richmond, and sundry other places, who, in connection 
with the resident physicians still moving, were able to visit the sick 
as often as necessary. Nurses, too, came from all the places first 
mentioned, and others, some of whom unfortunately were but illy 
prepared to meet the danger they voluntarily encountered. Like 
the unacclimated physicians, many of them suffered severely from 
the epidemic, and some fell victims. At one time New Orleans had 
fifty nurses in Norfolk and Portsmouth, employed at the rate of sixty 
dollars a month; and Charleston sent forty, at forty dollars a month. 
My own observations were confined to the city of Norfolk, with 
the exception of a single visit to the U. S. Naval Hospital at Ports- 
mouth, a magnificent establishment in charge of surgeon Minor, 
which, by order of Government, was opened for the general admis- 
sion of yellow fever patients. There I saw some forty or fifty pa- 
tients in different stages of the disease. A temporary hospital had 
been established some three or four miles from Norfolk, but it was 
found to be too inconvenient of access. The new Howard Infirmary, 
established in the heart of the city after our arrival, was found to 
be very serviceable. 
The impression made on my mind by the first cases I saw of this 
epidemic, was that it was of a mild type, and ought not to prove 
very fatal if properly managed. Indeed, the first seven or eight 
cases I took charge of, yielded very readily to a mild course of 
treatment; but it was not long before I discovered that the tendency 
to death in apparently mild cases, or those marked by no violent 
symptoms whatever, was much stronger than I had supposed. In 
some of the cases the approach of the disease was very gentle, there 98 
being nothing observable but a sense of fatigue, little headache, and 
slight feverishness. Indeed, the person would be in doubt whether 
he had the disease or not, and perhaps send for a physician to decide 
the question for him. A few hours would be sufficient to settle it, 
and he would then go on with symptoms somewhat better marked, 
but still not at all distressing. If asked how he felt, he generally 
replied "pretty well," or "very welN The system appeared to re- 
spond readily to moderate doses of medicine; every function seemed 
to be going on well, and the prognosis would be thought favorable 
until the approach of the critical period, the end of the third day. 
Then, if the case were going to terminate badly, there would appear 
eructations and acidity of the stomach, suppression of the urine, 
slight delirium and restlessness, and the patient would go into fatal 
black vomit and coma, in spite of anything that could be done for 
him. This unfavorable change would often take place most un- 
expectedly, and without the commission of any imprudence what- 
ever. Such were the cases of Mr. Cunningham, editor of the Nor- 
folk Beacon, and Mr. W. D. Roberts, a member elect of the Virginia 
Legislature. Each of them had mild attacks, and went on as quietly 
as possible for yellow fever patients till the close of the third day, 
when suppression of urine and other fatal symptoms appeared, and 
they sunk unconscious and almost without a struggle. Mr. R. threw 
up black vomit copiously. They were each about fifty years of age, 
and it was a remarkable fact, that but few persons of this age or be- 
yond, recovered from this epidemic. 
In many of these mild attacks, the skin acted finely till the third 
day, when it would become dry, and very soon be followed by rest- 
lessness and other bad symptoms; in others it was difficult to keep 
up a steady perspiration. The skin would not be very hot, nor was 
it difficult to start a perspiration, but it would soon cease, and there 
was a constant tendency to dryness. This symptom was generally 
unfavorable, but when accompanied by a loose state of the bowels, 
I regarded it as very much so. 
I have mentioned particularly these gentle attacks and apparently 
mild cases with the view to show the strong tendency to death that 
often existed when there were no urgent or distressing symptoms to 
give warning, thus too often blasting the fond hope and anticipation 
of physicians and friends; but it is not to be denied, that in the ma- 
jority of cases, the attack was open and bold enough, yet not suf- 
ficiently so to demand the use of cups or the lancet as often as we 
see in New Orleans. 99 
The disease appeared to become more malignant as the season 
advanced, as was shown by the greater number of deaths in propor- 
tion to attacks, and this was observed up to about the 27th of Sep- 
tember, when the epidemic rather suddenly declined, without the 
appearance of frost or storm, or any extraordinary change in the 
weather. Such, you know, was the case in our great epidemic of 
1853. 
I have often been asked the question whether in Norfolk the epi- 
demic was not more malignant and in other respects different from 
any that has prevailed in New Orleans. In reply, I could not say 
that it was. I saw no peculiar symptom or variety of the disease 
that I had not often witnessed in New Orleans; yet there may have 
been a difference in the relative frequency or combination of certain 
symptoms which would characterize this epidemic as being some- 
what different from all others, inasmuch as we never see two epi- 
demics precisely alike, even in the same locality. The malignancy 
of an epidemic is generally estimated by the mortality it causes; and 
in this respect a search into the records of yellow fever will show 
that the late mortality at Norfolk and Portsmouth, although very 
great, does not stand unrivalled. An estimate of this, however, can 
only be formed after we obtain a report of the number of persons 
exposed to the disease, the number attacked, and the total deaths, 
for which we will have to look to the physicians and authorities of 
Norfolk and Portsmouth. 
Let us now take a glance at some of the more prominent features 
of this memorable epidemic. 
It is well known that suppression of urine is a symptom of not 
unfrequent occurrence in yellow fever, and is generally considered 
a very bad symptom. I think it was more common in this epidemic 
than any I have ever witnessed, and was always of very serious 
import. In some few instances the secretion of urine was restored 
after being reduced to an exceedingly small quantity for twenty- 
four hours or longer, but where there was a total suppression for 
this length of time, I believe it was as rare to witness recovery as 
from the worst form of black vomit. Nor am I aware of anything 
that can be confidently relied on to restore this function when com- 
pletely suspended. I have known the flow of urine to be increased 
after having been reduced very low, and always viewed it as a 
favorable omen, but am by no means sure that the beneficial ch ange 
was justly due to the use of turpentine, nitre, gin, or any other 100 
diuretic. I am not inclined to believe that the suppression arises 
from any material change in the substance of the kidneys; none at 
least has been as yet satisfactorily demonstrated by post-mortem 
examinations. It seems to me that it must depend upon the morbid 
condition of the blood and the nervous system. Be it as it may, 
this symptom was certainly much more common at Norfolk than 
in the great epidemic of 1853 at New Orleans. 
In respect to hemorrhages, the grand characteristic feature of yel- 
low fever, almost every variety was witnessed at Norfolk, such as 
from the nose, mouth, stomach, bowels, uterus, scrotum, blistered 
surfaces, &c. In accordance with my observation at New Orleans, 
these hemorrhages were of different import, according to their seat. 
When hemorrhage began at the nose, gums, or uterus, it appeared 
to be a critical discharge, and was most generally followed by a 
salutary change in the condition of the patient; but when it began 
at the stomach, it made what is generally known as black vomit, a 
symptom that still holds its long established position as one of the 
most dangerous that attends this terrible disease. Black vomit was 
exceedingly common in this epidemic, and, what is worthy of 
remark, there were numerous recoveries from it. I hardly con- 
versed with a single physician who did not tell me of having seen 
one or more recoveries from this usually fatal symptom. The day 
I left Norfolk and was coming up James Biver, I had the pleasure 
of falling in with an interesting young lady, about thirteen years 
of age, the daughter of Capt. Whittle, of the Navy, whom I had 
treated in the epidemic. She had thrown up black vomit for forty- 
eight hours, but recovered from it, and then stood before me in 
perfect health. 
Becovery from black vomit was most common to the youthful, 
but several instances were seen amongst persons of more advanced 
age. 
In some cases the attack was ushered in with bilious vomitings; 
otherwise the symptoms throughout were not of a violent character, 
yet the case was very apt to terminate fatally. Some writers con- 
tend, as you are aware, that bilious vomitings are never met with at 
the onset of yellow fever, but my observation teaches me differently. 
Some of the most obstinate cases of this epidemic were marked 
by an almost perfectly natural tongue. 
I met with several cases in which severe hunger was a prominent 
symptom. They were very apt to terminate fatally. 101 
The negroes of Norfolk suffered severely from this epidemic, 
though not so much as the whites. The disease seemed to affect 
them pretty much as it does in Louisiana, and wherever there was 
any mixture of white blood amongst them, its effects were more 
severe. The bright mulatto will have yellow fever almost as 
severely as the pure white. From what I could learn, there were 
more deaths among the blacks of Norfolk than have ever occurred 
in an epidemic at New Orleans. 
Relapses were not unfrequent, and were generally dangerous. 
I knew several instances of second attack in persons who had had 
the disease previously at other places, but generally after intervals 
of ten or fifteen years, in which there had been no exposure to the 
disease. Nothing short of thorough acclimation afforded protection 
against this epidemic. 
In respect to treatment, I believe I have nothing new to offer, or 
anything that is worth inserting in your journal. Amongst so 
many physicians collected together from different places, and having 
views and opinions derived from such different sources, of course 
you would expect to find quite a variety of treatment. Such was 
the case at Norfolk. Of one thing I am pretty certain, the mortality 
was large under any treatment I saw pursued. Either the disease 
was unusually malignant or the constitutions of the people had less 
capacity for resisting its assaults. They seemed to sink more readily 
under its deleterious effects; to die with milder and less formidable 
looking symptoms than I ever witnessed before. Somehow or 
other the people of New Orleans make a better fight against yellow 
fever than did the citizens of Norfolk. It has been observed, how- 
ever, that whenever yellow fever epidemics prevail in more northern 
latitudes the mortality is very great. For myself, I recommended 
and used a mild course of treatment at Norfolk. I did not try to 
cut short and cure the disease, but rather to guide the patient 
through its natural stages. I thought I saw inj urious effects from 
over-medication, but it was notorious that the opposite or do-nothing 
system of the homoeopaths was signally unsuccessful; and then the 
survivors appeared to feel that their friends had been lost without 
a fair struggle against the destroying enemy. 
A remark or two about the mortality and supposed origin of this 
terrible epidemic must close this communication. 
Dr. N. 0. Whitehead, the acting Mayor of Norfolk, in a letter to 
the visiting physicians when they were about to depart to their 102 
respective homes, at the close of the epidemic, estimates the average 
population of the place during the pestilence at about 6,000, and 
the number of deaths at 2,000. I think these estimates will prove 
to be somewhat erroneous, and that the number of deaths most 
probably did not exceed 1600. 
A complete census of the 3d ward was taken by the Relief Com- 
mittee, which furnished the following statistics:- 
Population-whites, 638; colored, 558; total, 1,196. 
Fever cases-whites, 579; colored, 213; total, 792, or two-thirds 
of the inhabitants. 
Deaths-whites, 159; colored, 13; total, 172, or 21.70 per cent, of 
the attacked. 
This is one of the largest wards in the city. The mortality at 
the new Howard Infirmary, and also at the U. S. Naval Hospital, 
was about 35 per cent., or 1 in 2.80 of the admissions. 
About 70 physicians and second course medical students went to 
the assistance of Norfolk and Portsmouth, of whom 21 died. 
I am not prepared to admit that this epidemic was at all more 
malignant than that of New Orleans in 1853, though the mortality 
may have been somewhat greater in proportion to the attacks, from 
the depressing influence of panic and the want of proper nursing, 
which was severely felt at the beginning. 
As for the origin of the epidemic, it must remain shrouded in 
doubt until all the facts and circumstances attending its commence- 
ment are fully reported. But two sources are looked to by common 
consent: it must have originated either from a local cause, in con- 
nection with a peculiar constitution of the atmosphere around, or 
from a morbific germ imported by the steamship Ben Franklin. 
That it may have originated from the former, would appear pro- 
bable, from the fact that three cases of yellow fever occurred last 
year in Norfolk, and at the very spot where the epidemic of that 
city commenced this year. This was the celebrated Barry's Row, 
which was burned down this year. These cases occurred late in the 
season, and were not traceable to any foreign connection. In 1852, 
there were also several well-marked cases of yellow fever in Nor- 
folk, likewise apparently of local origin. I was also informed that 
some cases very much like yellow fever, though perhaps not un- 
questionably, were observed this year simultaneously with the first 
cases on board the Ben Franklin. But, on the other hand, it is 
certainly true that the epidemic appeared to commence at the spot 103 
where the Ben Franklin laid, which was at Gosport, and from there 
spread progressively over Portsmouth and Norfolk. 
Now, let us look to the behavior of the ship Ben Franklin. She 
arrived on the 6th of June from the island of St. Thomas; was exa- 
mined by the health officer, Dr. Gordon, on the 7th, and, although 
she was found to be perfectly clean and free from disease, she was 
ordered to undergo quarantine, because she had come from a sus- 
pected port. During her late voyage, two deaths had occurred on 
board; one a fireman, who died of disease of the heart, and the 
other a sailor, who was put in his place, and sank from exhaustion, 
being unaccustomed to the employment. On the 19th of June the 
vessel was released from quarantine, at the instance of the Board of 
Health of Norfolk, no case of sickness having occurred during her 
detention, notwithstanding the employment of a new crew on the 
day after her arrival. The vessel was then taken up to Gosport for 
repairs, and remained there until July 8, eighteen days after she 
had been released from quarantine, when the authorities of Ports- 
mouth ordered her off, on account of the occurrence of a case of 
yellow fever that was thought to be traceable to the vessel. She 
again returned to quarantine ground. On the 12th, she was exa- 
mined by Dr. Schoolfield, on behalf of the Portsmouth Common 
Council, and was found to be perfectly clean and healthy. On the 
13th, these parties addressed a note to the health officer, stating 
these facts, and consenting to release the vessel from quarantine 
again. On this day Dr. Gordon visited her, and found a suspicious 
case of fever on board, which caused him to detain her till the mor- 
row. He then visited her again, and found two more cases, which 
he pronounced to be yellow fever. From that time and place the 
disease continued to spread till it resulted in the terrific epidemic 
that has caused such desolation in both cities. Such is a brief sum- 
mary of the facts relative to the ship Ben Franklin, obtained from 
authentic documents, and published by a correspondent of the Rich- 
mond Whig. Now, if three cases of yellow fever originated from 
local causes at Norfolk in 1854, and a greater number of cases in 
like manner in 1852; and, furthermore, if one or more cases were 
seen about Norfolk and Gosport at the time or previous to the first 
case that occurred on the Ben Franklin, and having no connection 
with that vessel, as I heard reported, there is certainly much room 
to doubt whether this epidemic arose from an imported infection. 
It is hoped that all the facts attending the origin of this memo- 
rable epidemic will be authentically reported at an early day. 104 
There is one important point, on which, I believe, there is a 
general concurrence of testimony, which is, that this disease was 
neither contagious nor infectious beyond the limits of Norfolk and 
Portsmouth. Numerous cases were carried to Baltimore, Richmond, 
Petersburg, and various other places, and in not a single instance 
was it communicated to persons coming in contact.