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Pv-
SUPPLEMENT TO THE MAYOR':
JANUARY 1st,  1871
m
E
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A i
1,
MIC  II
1876
yi>
ADOPTED BY THE  MUNICIPALITY DURING THE  ADMINISTRATION OF HON.
                    J. F. WHEATON,  MAYOR.
BY  JAMES  J.  WARING,
      CHAIRMAN  DRY  CULTURE COMMITTEE.
   "Let every one physician or not freely declare his own sentiments about it; let him
assign any credible account of its rise, or the causes strong enough, in his opinion, to
introduce so terrible a scene."—Thucydides, "Plague at Athens."
   The history of yellow fever teaches that the mortality is great, even under the most
favorable circumstances.  When  recording the eighteenth case I also  recorded the
thirteenth death. This would seem to indicate a necessity of turning our attention from
the vain endeavor to combat the disease, or to try any improved treatment of the sick, to
the other alternative, prevention.—Page 4, Analysis of Record of TeUow Fever in 1870, by
Joseph HoU, M. D., Sanitary Inspector for the Fourth District, New Orleans.
        SAVANNAH, GA. :
MOBNING NEWS STEAM PRINTING HOUSE.
            1879,
C/6^^'si
'Si'jn ^U'
;/
8459 
I £7 9 
DEDICATION.
IN THE  BELIEF THAT  A MORE EXTENDED AND CORRECT
      KNOWLEDGE OF THE NATURE  AND CAUSES OF
          EPIDEMICS IS THE SUREST MEANS OF
              THEIR PREVENTION, THIS
COLLECTION  OF SCIENTIFIC DATA IS HUMBLY DEDICATED

          TO  THE  PEOPLE OF SAVANNAH. 
A VIEW UF  SAVANNAH as it stood the 29" of Mar.-lx 1734 .
To the Honorable Trustees for establishing the Colony of  Georgin  in America,
This view of the town of Savannah is humbly dedicated by their Honour*s
Obliged and most obedient servant,
PETER GORDON. 
  " It was known that whilst these lands remained in a state of
nature they were unproductive of disease, and that some seventy-
five years ago, as I have been  informed by Dr. Jones, Savannah
was resorted to in Summer by some of the inhabitants of Charles-
ton on account of its salubrity."—Autumnal Fevers of Savannah,
page 20, W.  C. Daniel, M. D., 1826. 
 
 
F<-nlllaji'r.fcih.l+W 
DESCRIPTION  OF MAP  OF SAVANNAH.
  Green—Elevated sand plateau upon which the city is built.
  Red—Zone of dryness  upon surrounding lowlands, created by
dry culture contract in 1817-20, and perfected in 1877.
  Blue—Rice lands subject to irrigation.
  Yellow—Back swamps, now drained.
  ***—Atlantic and  Gulf Railroad  wharves,  upon  which was
deposited  the Cuban ballast.
  00—Deposit of dredge mud in 1854.
  *} *s *—On green, first cases of yellow fever within seven days,
in 1876.
  oo,  oo—On Springfield, points of deposit of scavenger's garbage
from 1865 to 1877.
  The map also shows the relations of the elevated plateau of the
city to  the  surrounding low lands,  which  have been in  every
epidemic  (1820, 1854, 1876) and (in lesser epidemics of  1817,
1819,  1821, 1858, 1864), in exceptionally bad condition and in-
tensely malarial, a condition which existed when yellow fever be-
tween 1780  and 1820 occurred annually.  The red  shows the
effective labors of the municipality in creating the zoDe of dryness
originally  projected by the dry culture contracts of 1817-20, and
the blue shows the present rice lands subject to irrigation. 
TOPOGRAPHY  AND DESCRIPTION  OF  SAVANNAH.
     Savannah is a city of  28,000 inhabitants, one-half of  whom are white
 and one-half colored, covering an area of  two miles square, standing on a
 plateau fifty feet above tide water, flanked on each side  by low lands three
 feet below high water mark of tides, and fronted by a long island of the same
 low alluvium.  It stands on the 32d parallel  of latitude, having a mean tem-
 perature of sixty-eight degrees, Fahrenheit, being the same as the Bermudas.
 The winter is a short one of  six weeks duration, extending from the middle
 of December to the first of February, with occasional light frosts and rarely
 a film of ice—never snow.  The immediate proximity of the Gulf Stream
 affects the temperature, and hence the cold and cold dry winds come from
 the north and west.   In summer the prevailing winds are south and  south-
 east, and are the cooling sea breezes.  It is  within the circle of  West India
 hurricanes, which have struck  this  city with great violence several times
 since the close  of the war, notably in  1871-73-75-78.  The  tropical rains
 which fall in June, July and August are marvelous for the quantity of water
 which falls.   The rainfall of June, 1876, reached the enormous amount of
 sixteen  and  one-half inches, and  was the indirect cause of  the epidemic,
 converting Springfield low  lands on the  west into an  unbroken sheet of
 water.
    The accompanying map will show at a glance  the influences surround-
 ing the town iu 1876.  The green represents  the elevated plateau upon which
 the town is built; the red the low lands placed under dry culture in is 17-20,
 but which during the epidemic  were intensely malarial,  in June, and July
 and August soaking wet, and a large part ef  that period partially submerged
 and offensive.   (See  official report of John B. Hogg, City Surveyor, p.  —.)
    The yellow represents the back swamps  recently drained.  The yellow
 and  red  represent those lands which this  administration  has  thoroughly
 drained  and dried, amounting to  1,200 acres.
    The blue represents the rice lands still subject to irrigation and harvest
 water.  The three crosses on the green  show  the points at which the first
 cases of yellow fever occurred, August 21st,  22d, 26th. The three stars (***)
 on the left mark the Atlantic and Gulf railroad wharves, upon which were
 deposited the Regla  ballast from  Cuba, supposed to have been the possible
 cause of introducing  yellow fever.  Immediately back of this point are  the
 130 acres of  dangerous harvest water lands in close proximity to the city,
 successfully  drained  by this administration.  A little to the  right  of  the
 three stars are two ciphers, marking the point of deposit of dredged mud,
 supposed cause of yellow fever in 18.">4. The yellow border on the east  side
 of Springfield low lands is the point of extensive deposit of all the garbage
 and scavenger debris of the city during the epidemic and for  several years
 before it.  This  slope was unusually wet and reeking with water, and cov-
 ered by hundreds of  turkey buzzards seeking their food in the offal during
the whole period of  the epidemic.  (See letter addressed to Health Officer
during epidemic.) 
PKEFACE.
   The existence of an epidemic at Savannah was not known to its
absent citizens uutil September  1st.  Upon learning of its exis-
tence the writer returned to Savannah and had the honor to sub-
mit to the Mayor and  Council, in an interview with them, the
following :
                                      September 20th, 1876.
   Gentlemen :  I have the honor to lay  before you a practical
method of  arresting the epidemic which is now visiting Savannah
with fatal effects.  It is an accepted fact that  such diseases as
yellow fever, bilious  fever and their congeners are  produced by
the seeds of living organisms.   These living organisms are classed
as cryptogamic plants, and their seeds are called spores.   * *  *
   It will be observed that this work necessarily divides itself into
two parts—first, to clear and  clean, and  put in perfect working
order the drains  around Savannah, which are now keeping back
large masses of  water ;  second, to attack  every particle of green
mould wherever found in the interior of the town.   The trunk of
every tree should be whitewashed, so also  every wooden fence and
old wooden house, scrape old shingle roofs and whitewash them ;
this will  last till frost.   Pour the gas washings  (diluted carbolic
acid1) upon all damp, mouldy yards, and rake them well with iron
rakes.  *  *  *  (Carbolic acid to privies and its free use was
not mentioned.)  *   *^ *  I  predict with  absolute confidence
that if this work is finished by October 1st  the disease will have
so far ceased that with the first light frost on October 10th or 15th,
everybody will be returning home.   *  *   *
                                          James J. Waring.
   The proposition was  accepted, money  by private subscription
was  raised, the  drainage was  fairly done, but whilst  Alderman
DoUglas  was organizing a large force for disinfection, divided
counsels  discouraged the municipal authorities.  The  work  was
arrested  at this point, and disinfection by the New Orleans method
abandoned. Whilst malarial  fevers markedly subsided in Octo-
ber, no perceptible impression was produced upon the progress of
yellow fever until frost and cold  closed the painful scenes of  the
epidemic. 
 
WHAT SHALL  THE PEOPLE  OF SAVANNAH  NOW
  DO TO  PREVENT  IN  ALL  FUTURE  TIME  THE
  REPETITION  OF THE  DISASTERS OF  1820, 1854
  AND 1876?
  And, incidentally, what has this administration done towards
the accomplishment of so desirable a result.
  To this end, in this report have been gathered together material
and facts which, if  fairly considered, become a guide to an intel-
ligent and vigilant  protection of the public health.
  To  this end, have been gathered in readable form, material
to make up, for the reasonable mind, answers to these questions :
  1. Can these epidemics originate in Savannah ?
  2. Is importation essential  to the existence of yellow  fever in
Savannah ?
  3. What is the poison of yellow fever ?
  To this end is submitted herewith :
  1. An analysis of the epidemic of 1876, and other papers bear-
ing upon the epidemic of 1854 and 1820.
  2.  Considering the exceptional causes and the general predis-
posing causes of  the epidemic of 1876.
  3. The malarial element of that epidemic, and
  4. The question  of its importation,
  Embodying in a  brief  report the labors of the  present admin-
istration, both as to possible importation and possible local origin ;
a condensed report of the most approved opinion upon the sub-
ject of water closets and privies ; a  condensed history  of  the
development  of knowledge of the germ theory of disease ; and,
finally, a translation from the German of F. Cohn upon bacteria,
a subject attracting much attention at the present time.
  First, these papers will show  :
  1. That there is no proof of importation in 1820,1854 and 1876.
  2. That yellow fever occurred annually up to 1820.
  3. That yellow fever can occur in Savannah at the  most dan-
gerous period of  the year, as in 1877, without the spread or propa-
gation of the vital organisms,  (bacteria), and without spread of
the infection and consequent sickness or death of the people. 
10
the epidemic at savannah.
  4. That the  recent discoveries of science leave little  doubt as
to the nature of the poison of yellow fever—indeed, of all pesti-
lential diseases ;  that they assimilate in  form to  the lowest algse,
(see Cohn page), and in function to the  lowest fungi  (see Cohn
page) ;  that  they are for convenience called bacteria,  and  are
classified  by F. Cohn according to their forms,  and by Pasteur
according to their functions ;  that they cannot abstract  carbonic
acid and  other elements from the air, but abstract  elements of
their structure  from organic matter, both dead and living, produc-
ing putrefaction in dead organic matter, and disease in lying mat-
ter, both  vegetable  and animal ; that they live without air, and
must live  on organic matter because they have no chlorophyl like
the algae ; that hence the removal of  dead organic matters, result-
ing in cleanliness, is the certain prevention of their  existence and
propagation.
  5. That there is the amplest evidence that bacteria, like all other
plants, can be transplanted from place to place, and have persis-
tent forms and  persistent functions ;  hence the necessity  of
quarantine, if towns have within their limits any quantity of putre-
faction materials, and as certainly quarantine is needless if clean-
liness is assured.
  6. That there is nothing more certain than that innocent forms
of bacteria can rapidly expand  into  varieties or  culture  races
(Cohn), like all other plants in proportion to the rapidity of their
propagation and the intensity of their vitality and the consequent
shortness  of their life, according to a well recognized law that  the
greater the intensity of  vitality the  shorter the life.  This is  the
polymorphism  which renders reasonable  the theory of domestic
origin, and which  necessarily  admits the  possibility of the trans-
planting or importation of these bacteria,  especially when intense-
ly active and virulent. 
  To paragraph second, page 11, add—
  A Sanitary Commission was also created which has carefully
watched  the  appearance of any contagious diseases  or  of  any
conditions threatening epidemic  sickness, and vigorously  applied
all well recognised methods of relief and prevention.   The Coun-
cil has also had  the  advantage of the active cooperation of  a
Commission of Drainage, created by State law, which has faith-
fully and effectively expended an appropriation by the State for
the proper drainage of this county.   This commission  has left
a monument  of  its wisdom in the admirable work it has done
upon Springfield low lands, and the southeastern swamps. 
 
                    REPORT
                          ON THE
LIBORS OF THE  ADMINISTRATION  \\  1877  AND 1878.
  When the present Board of Common Council took charge of the
municipal government on January 22, 1877, it  was their duty to
admit the possibility of importation and  guard the city from this
possible danger, but at the same time to respect the traditions
and experiences of this  town, and pursue the invariable policy
of  the wisest and best  legislators the people of Savannah have
ever had, and treating the possible cause of epidemic yellow fever
as of local origin.   For these reasons :
  It entrusted the danger of importation to the  committee known
as Health and Cemetery, and entrusted the  danger of a possible
local origin to the  committee  known as  Dry Culture, created in
1821.  The following was the  condition of the city and its  sur-
roundings at this date, and which it has been the aim of the proper
departments to remove or ameliorate :
  1st  All the low tide lands around the city were intensely mala-
rial and imperfectly drained, or not drained at all.
  2d. The western and eastern slopes nearer still to the city were
sobbed and dripping.
  3d. The western slopes and Springfield lowland were the places
of deposit of almost  the entire garbage and refuse of  the  city
for  the past twelve years.
  4th. Two hundred acres of the western lowlands, including these
garbage  slopes, within the corporate limits, had  been, just before
the epidemic, the scene of one vast overflow, resulting in  the con-
version  of  this large area into an extensive rotting surface of  the
most offensive character.  (See report of John B. Hogg, page —).
Though  relieved  of this, an important  work  was  necessary  to
prevent a similar disaster by the raising of dams, opening drains
and establishing a new system  of brow drainage for  the western
slopes.
  5th. The dry culture contract lands on Hutchinson's Island had
been neglected for fifty years, and these were to be restored. 
12
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
  6th. The power to enforce upon property-holders the drainage
and drying of their lands around the city being  a doubtful one,
it was necessary to obtain from the Legislature a public act  em-
powering Council to enforce it.  This was obtained.
  7th. The Bilbo canal was fouled and silted up, its dams protect-
ing the adjoining  lowlands were entirely too low, and the pro-
vision by trunks to  drain these low lands into this canal was a
constant mischief.   Moreover, the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad had
planted itself upon  one of these drains—the eastern one—and it
was necessary to  bind, by agreement and  contract, this road to
take care of,  and keep up to grade, this  dam.   All this has  been
thoroughly remedied and  the needed  contract  with this road
executed.
  8th. Within the area of dry culture, established in 1817, were cer-
tain lands of John  Waters, upon which the  Mayor (Daniels), in
1826,  had failed to enforce the measure in a law suit.   These dan-
gerous lowlands, amounting  to 130 acres,  yearly covered  with
harvest water, have   been placed  under dry  culture contract, by
purchase, for the sum of $5,200.
  9th. The southeastern  swamps, in  close proximity to the  city
and in the direction of the prevailing winds of summer, had never
been drained, were  intensely malarial and indescribably desolate
and dismal.   These have been thoroughly drained and fitted for
agriculture.
  10th. Certain ponds, formed by excavations of brickyards, were
offensive masses of  stagnant water, covered  always with a green
film.   These have been dried  by partial filling.
  11th. The privies of Savannah are a sore  evil, always offensive
and foul, simply because left to the private citizens to keep clean.
After  the  failure of very many schemes, this administration has
placed the cleansing of them  on a footing with  the scavenger de-
partment, and the public  authorities will do the work, charging an
annual tax upon every privy.
  12th. The  scavenger has been  compelled, by a change of con-
tract,  to remove the garbage to a distance of one mile.
  13th. The ventilation of waste pipes and sewers, so much needed*
has been enforced by ordinance.
  14th. The Bilbo canal  had  never been properly flushed bv the
high tides.   Since  the dams  have been raised to a proper high
grade and strengthened,  the tides are now fearlessly turned in on
this receptacle of  filth. 
          REPORT  ON THE LABORS OF THE ADMINISTRATION.        13

  In few words, by reference to the map accompanying, the eye
at once appreciates the  work done  by this  administration.  The
area of sweet and  healthful dry lands  has  been expanded into a
broad zone one mile in width, extending around the whole  circuit
of the city, and to accomplish  this, 1,200 acres of land have been
redeemed within this  zone of dryness, which  had  never  been
properly  redeemed, and, indeed, it may be  safely said no citizen
believed, two years ago, could  have been  redeemed.  We allude
more particularly to the John Waters' rice land on the east and
Hutchinson Island on the north.
  By reference to the map also, the blue coloring will show the
source of malaria  now existing and its distance from the  town,
whilst the red shows the work of this administration and the state
of things existing here preceding and during the epidemic.
            THE  HISTORY  OF  DRY CULTURE.
  The late Dr. W.  C. Daniell published in 1826 a little volume on
fever.  On page 21 is the following extract :
  " In 1817, at a town  meeting, it was resolved that about seventy
thousand  dollars should  be appropriated  by the city to the pur-
chase of the right of cultivation,  in wet  culture, of such of the
tide swamps  as were  adjacent to the city.  These  lands  were
accordingly subjected to a dry culture, by contract, at the price of
forty dollars per acre ;  and  the  system went into operation the
following  year.  Its success at first surpassed the expectations of
its warmest friends.  The want  of attention to the cleanliness of
the city, the introduction of a laboring class of whites unaccus-
tomed to  our climate, the  great  mortality of 1820, the reputed
unproductiveness  of the dry  culture  lands, with  other circum-
stances, gradually  brought the system into considerable disrepute,
and in 1821 it was determined that the propriety of continuing it
should be decided  by a vote of the citizens.  Upon  counting the
ballots the majority in favor of its continuance was only sixty-nine
votes.  Those opposed to  the dry culture system  now became
more  clamorous than  ever.  About this  time new  efforts  were
made to sustain the system ; a new train of measures was adopted  ;
a Board of Health, which had been previously established, took
under its special care the condition of our streets, lanes, etc., and
great attention was paid to cleanliness. 
14
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
    " The proprietors of the dry culture lands were gradually in-
  duced to pay more regard to their contracts.   One of the largest
  tracts, and immediately opposite  to the city, came  into the pos-
  session of T. Spalding, Esq., of Darien, who placed it, at  great
  labor and expense, in very fine order.   His example was followed
  by several of the other contractors, and most of these  lands  are
  now in good condition.  Its benefits being most obvious, public
  opinion is now almost unanimous in favor of the dry culture
  system.
    " Elevated above the adjacent  country, situated upon a dry
  sandy soil, and the  cultivation of  rice in  its immediate  vicinity
  restrained, Savannah will be  considered as enjoying advantages
  for health superior to any Southern city, and it must  become a
  place of summer retreat for those residing in its vicinity, whether
  upon the sea shore or in the interior, as it was some seventy  years
  ago.
    " Subjoined is an extract from a report made by the Dry Culture
  Committee to the City Council early in 1824 :
    " Six years have now  passed away under the operation of  the
  dry culture system.  Imperfectly as that system has been enforced,
  it has given  proofs  the most conclusive of a favorable influence
  upon the health of Savannah.  It  is the object of your committee,
  in their report, to refer to these facts,  and to show by  them how
  important it is that the City  Council  should persevere in rigidly
  enforcing the dry culture contracts ; and, to  pursue, by all lawful
ymeans, those who, alike regardless of their engagements with the
 ' city and  the dictates of humanity, set at naught the  deep and
  permanent interest of the community in which they live, and to
  which they are indebted for  the protection of their property.  It
  cannot have  escaped the attention of  the most careless observer,
  that since the introduction of the dry culture system our summer
  and autumnal atmosphere have undergone a great and favorable
  change in its sensible qualities.  The fogs which heretofore rising
  from the lands,  now subjected to the dry culture system, and
  penetrating  to the heart of  our  city, gave a high   degree of
  humidity to our  atmosphere,  have since  disappeared, and with
  them that humidity.  Heavy  fogs may now occasionally, in an
  autumn morning, be seen rising  from lands cultivated  in rice.
  Sometimes they  approach the eastern and western ends of  the
  city, but do not advance further.  During the long flow which was
  made the last season upon  the rice fields recently opened  upon 
REPORT ON THE LABORS OP THE ADMINISTRATION.        15
 the southwest extremity of the city, the atmosphere became more
 heavy and damp, and in a short time  a very disagreeable stench
 was remarked by the inhabitants of that portion of the city ; the
 trunks conveying the water to the rice suddenly gave way, and
 the putrid water escaped its confinement before the trunks could
 be repaired.  The offensive stench was not perceived after this.
 Previous to the introduction  of the dry culture system, such was
 the humidity of the atmosphere of this city during the long flow
 upon the rice, that a person being exposed for a short time at
 night, could wring water from the  locks of hair hanging below his
 hat.   Now, throughout  the whole  season there is a dryness and
 an elasticity of atmosphere, the very reverse of what existed pre-
 viously.  It will be obvious that this great improvement in the
 sensible  qualities of  our atmosphere must  be  salutary to  those
 who breathe it."
   In the same report is a comparative table of the proportion of
 deaths to population.  Here is the published testimony of 1824 :
   1815,  1 in 15   )
   1816,  1 in 18   [■  Wet culture.
   1817,  lin9 1-2)
   1818,  1 in 62 3-4.
   1819,  1 in 13—(Dry culture contracts violated.)
   1820,  1 in 5 1-10—(Epidemic.)
   1821,  1 in 37   )
   1822,  1 in 33 4-5 J-   Dry culture.
   1823,  1 in 32 1-6 )
   In 1817 the  dry culture contracts were made and  carried into
 effect, and in their ordinance the city authorities  said : " It does
 appear to Council that  these measures recommended will have
 the effect of  so ameliorating the health of this city as to check, if
 not  to prevent, the  ravages  heretofore produced by  autumnal
 fevers, and to render it a safe and healthy residence, which, from
 its high, dry and advantageous situation, nature intended it to be."
   In 1818, when the rice-field system of drainage with trunks, and
 gates,  and ditches were in perfect order, the mortality fell to one
 in sixty-two.   Every rice planter knows the rapidity of decay and
 ruin to the drainage of rice lands by one season of neglect;  and
 the second condition of Springfield, two years after the neglect by
 the owners, became worse than the first.  The epidemic of 1820
 succeeded as a consequence, and in 1822 our fathers  created the
 now well-known Committee on  Dry Culture, in order to enforce
the observance of these contracts. 
16
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
     When the dry culture contracts were made in 1817-1820, Vale
   Royal plantation, 250 acres low land (see map), was subjected to
   dry culture, but Springfield plantation, 142 acres low land, was
   not so contracted  for, and not subjected to dry culture.   These
   were rice plantations, and the  latter  continued  to  be a rice plan-
   tation until 1850, when the city authorities purchased  it from the
   heirs  of Joseph Stiles.
     These 1 wo bodies of land were the property of this Joseph Stiles,
   an emigrant from the Bermuda.  The Springfield  tract consisted
   of 963 acres, 142 acres of which were low tide lands, below the
   level of high water in the Savannah river.   The Vale Royal tract
   consisted of one thousand acres, 250 acres of which were low tide
   lands below the level of  high water in Savannah  river.   In Feb-
   ruary, 1762, second year of  George III, the plantation  of  Royal
   Vale, in the province of Georgia, 1,000 acres in extent, was granted
   to Pickering Robinson,  Esq.,  upon condition  that he clear  and
   cultivate three acres for every fifty acres granted, and by him sold
   to Laclan McGilliveay for five shillings, and by him sold to a Ber-
   muda family, by name Stiles.  In 1850, Springfield  had become
   such a public  nuisance, in consequence of the obstruction to its
   drainage, caused by (in 1826)  the digging and  embanking  across
   the line of  its drainage of the Ogeechee canal, and in 1830 the
   building of the Central Railroad embankments, that  in that year
   the city was induced by Dr. James P. Screven to purchase the
   whole tract, and the generation of  men who have just passed away
   enacted an  ordinance, dated 29th of August, 1850, with this solemn
   and authoritative declaration :
     '' Whereas, The  city of Savannah has recently become the pur-
   chaser in fee simple of that tract of land called Springfield, lying
   on the southwestern border of the city, which purchase was made
   for the sole purpose of reducing to and keeping in a state of dry
x  culture the said tract of  land, which is low and swampy  and has
   been,  in its wet state, the cause of disease to the people of Savan-
   nah ;  and, whereas, it is  the duty of the City Council to remove
   the said cause of disease, and to place the said tract of land in a
   dry and healthful state ;  and, whereas, the Legislature of the State
   have conferred upon the city government ample  power for the dis-
   charge of that duty ; and, whereas, it is essential to the  dryness
   of the said  lands and to  the protection of the health of  the citi-
   zens that the said tract of land should be perfectly drained  in the
   natural course of the water, to the extent of its drainage capacity 
          REPORT ON THE LABORS OF THE ADMINISTRATION.        17

 and that the flow of the water through the said drains should not
 be impeded."
   In 1864 it is  well known that Springfield was overflowed for
 defensive purposes, and the Andersonville prisoners  were placed
 on the parade ground, General Lafayette  McLaws being in com-
 mand of Savannah.   It is  well known that there was a marked
 outbreak of yellow fever in that year.
   In 1871  Springfield was overflowed and made one vast sheet of
 water by the breaking of the banks of the Ogeechee canal during the
 cyclone of  August 18 ;  and, though the city authorities made vigor-
 ous efforts to drain and restore to a dry condition these lands, a
 marked outbreak of yellow  fever occurred in the middle of October,
 the first victims being the three members of the Garroway family,
 who had been three weeks in  Savannah, and had come from Augusta.
   In 1876 Springfield was again overflowed by that  wonderful
 rainfall of  sixteen and a half inches, which fell between the 9th and
 18th of June, and these waters were allowed to leak off and be evap-
 orated slowly as best  they might, during this past unprecedent-
 edly hot summer.   The drains had not been touched  for one year,
 and the wild growth of Springfield during and after the epidemic,
 covered by the water grass,  asmart, instead of, as in eight years pre-
 viously,;by the kesina weeds, which only grow on very dry ground, is
 the best evidence of what existed during this summer of epidemic.
   The officials and  passengers of the Central Railroad bear testi-
 mony to the offensive odor of  Springfield during June and July.
 John McGrath  is the lessee of  the  tract bordering on Gwinnett
 street;  he testifies that his  land wis useless to him until I drained
 it on September 25th, and that a party of pleasure, which he con-
 veyed on July 23d to the residence of Captain Dooner, who lives
 on the western high ground of Springfield, refused to return that
 night until compelled by him to do so, because of the sickening
 and offensive atmosphere of this spot.
   Now couple together two more facts with this one :  The late
 epidemic reached its height and prevailed in marked virulence only
 in the month of  September, and the Signal Bureau report, which
 is herewith published, shows that  the southwest wind, blowing
 from off this pestilential swamp, prevailed in this month, whereas,
 for the three years previously, the northeast wind had prevailed
 in each of those  years. Can we shut our eyes to these facts ? The
 dispassionate observer will not fail to note them, and give them a
proper consideration.
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     TABLE.
MORTUARY  FEVER RECORD—CONTINUED.
		«			ea	J§ ^		
		.-—■		t^	——	-r IS		
c3		~C3	fa-	o fc-l	C3 'a £ p- to	P=N ,--,	'5b	Remarks,
		&^			"S	P3		
1842		243	33,...		* 34	1:3.6		* Scarlet.
1843		259	84 ...		* 8	1:2.8		
1844	.......	248	35 ...		* 22	1:4.3		
1845	.......	229	31i...		* 25	1:4		
1846		240	47 ...		* 9	1:4.3		
1847		195	23:...		* 5	1:7		
1848		295	16|...		* 38	1:6.7		*Bilious.
1849		380	41,...		* 30 1:5.3			
1850	14,000	329	27l...		* 25 1:6.3			*Bilious and remittent.
1851		330	28:...		* 17; 1:7.3			♦Bilious and remittent.
1852		298	16'...		* 32! 1.6.2			♦Malignant and bilious.
1853		302	24 .. .		* 19J 1:7			*Malignant and bilious.
1854		1,111		639	*138 1:1.4			♦Malignant and bilious.
1855		410			* 69 1:6			
1856		434			* 96 1 vl.K			
1857	.......; 646		5		* 38	1:15		♦Malarial.
1858	....... 514			114	* 83	1:2.6		
			1		* 65	1:11.3		♦Bil., rnaiig. and cong.
1860	18.000, 775				* 97	1:8		♦Bilious and scarlet.
1861	......., 856		6	3	♦131	1:6		♦Intermit'nt and remit.
18654	......: 966		4		♦156	1:6		♦Intermit'nt and remit.
1863		867			♦124	1:7		*Intermit'nt and remit.
1864		1,236	18	11	* 87	1:10.6	4	* Bilious and malarial.
1865		1,985	4	1	*146	1:13	4	♦Bilious and malarial.
1866		1,439	8	4	*106	1:10	9	*Bilious and malarial.
1867		1,039	8		* 94	1:10	4	*Bilious and malarial,
1868		1,114	10	1	* 95	1:10	17	*Bilious and malarial.
1869		845	4	1	* 66	1:11.9		*Bilious and malarial.
1870	28,000	1,026	10	. . ■	♦ 91	1:10		♦Remit, and intermit.
1871		1,132	11	3	*100	1:10		*Remit. and intermit.
1872		1,155	10		* 93	1:11		♦Remit, and intermit.
1873	........	1,347	4		* 72	1:18		
1874		1,036	4	1	* 83	1:11.8		♦Bilious and malarial.
1875		996	....	8	* 43	1:23		♦Remittent and bilious.
1876		2,249		896	* 47	1:2.4		♦Remittent and bilious.
1877		998	• • .	1	* 56	1:17.5		♦Remittent and bilious.
1878		980	2		* 51	1:18		^Remittent and bilious.
 
20               The epidemic at savannah1.

                        TABLE.

        SEPARATING DEATHS OF WHITE  AND COLORED.
Years.
1866..............
1867...............
1868...............
1869................
1870................
1871...............
1872................
1873...............
1874................
1875................
1876................
1877...............
1878, to December 1st
Whites.
Colored.
534	903	1,439
476	563	1,039
518	596	1,114
414	431	845
450	576	1,026
526	606	1,132
519	636	1,155
558	789	1,347
394	642	1,036
394	602	996
1,265	984	2,249
375	623	998
335	585	920
Total. 
  On page 21—
  The rate of deaths to population steadily fell in each decade as
1 in 14, 1 in 17,  1 in 24, 1 in 33, 1 in 46; but  since the late war
and  the emancipation  of the colored people,  the death rate has
risen to 1  in 25, and 1 in 26.  The death rate  for all the decades,
except the two last, were taken  from Joseph Bancroft's Statistics
of Savannah, 1848.   He says:  "It would be  proper to  remark,
however,  that the mortality among that class  (blacks)  of  the
population, who  through the years set forth  in the table have
numbered but little less than one-half of the entire population, is
but as 2 to 3 of whites; and the months of the greatest and least
mortality, the reverse of the whites."  On page 20,  it is seen that
the deaths of the colored people have risen  to nearly double that
of the  whites, thus in  1877 there  are 375  white  deaths  to 623
colored, and in 1878, 335 whites to 585 colored. 
 
THE EFFECTS OF DRY CULTURE.
21
THE FOLLOWING TABLE WILL SHOW THE EFFECTS
            OF DRY CULTURE SINCE  1804.
DECADE.	^ A 4. O . -•a	DECREASE OF FEVER DEATHS.	P o v, p, O o Oh
1st.—1800 to 1810. 2d.—1810 to 1820. 3d.—1820 to 1830. 4th.—1830 to 1840. 5th.—1840 to 1850. 6th.—1850 to 1860. 7th.—1860 to 1870. 8th.—1870 to 1879.	1 in 2.6 1 in 2.3 1 in 4.1 J 1 in 4.7 | 1 in 4.4 | f 1 1 in 6.7 | 1 f 1 in 9.2 -j l 1 in 15 \	This decrease of fever deaths is under influence of the dry culture contracts 1817-20. No further labors, no fur-ther results. No further labors, no fur-ther results. This decrease of fever deaths is under influence of dry cul-ture labors of Aldermen Dr. Scriven, Dr. Saussy and Dr. Posey. This decrease of fever deaths is under the influence of the dry culture labors of Alder-man Dr. James J. Waring. Is under the influence of la-bors of Mayor Screven and Alderman Haywood, 1871-4; and for 1871 to '79 under influence of dry culture com-mittee, J. J. Waring chair-man, and State Commission-ers of Drainage.	lin 14 lin 17 1 in 24 lin 33 1 in 46 1 in 25 1 in 26
TABLE.
SHOWING THE EFFECTS OF DRY  CULTURE ON THE NUMBER  OF
  PRESCRIPTIONS MADE UP AT CITY DISPENSARY FOR THE POOR.

1875..........................September Prescriptions,  1,947
1876..........................September Prescriptions,  3,670
1877............... ...........September Prescriptions,  2,600
1878..........................September Prescriptions,  1,697 
THE  EPIDEMIC OF  1876.
A MALARIAL AND YELLOW FEVER—A FEVER OF  INTERMITTENT, REMIT-
     TENT  AND CONTINUED  (MONOPAROXYSMAL)  MALIGNANT TYPE.
   In the month  of August, 1876, a fever of intermittent, remit-
 tent  and  continued  malignant  (yellow fever)  type  gradually
 developed itself into an epidemic of the utmost fatality at Savan-
 nah.  The language of the report to the City Council upon the
 epidemic of 1820, of Dr. Wm. R. Waring, is the exact language
 applicable to this epidemic of 1876 :
   " The epidemic began then as mild and manageable intermittent
 and remittent bilious fever.   In the course of its march it became
 a remittent, more  severe and fatal; at another step, a continued
fever, most ungovernable and destructive, at first of short, but
 afterwards,  in some  instances,   of considerable duration,  and,
 finally, concluded with a relapse into the primary intermittent and
 remittent types."
   The epidemics  of 1820 and 1854 can alone be compared to it.
 In 1820 there were 729  deaths in an average population of  3,000
 for the  period of  seven months of its duration, or a death rate of
 one to four of the population.  In 1854 there were  1,040 deaths
 in an average population of 6,000 for the period of four  months,
 or a death rate  of one to six.  (See  Mayor's report, John E.
 Ward, 1854.)
   In 1876 there were 1,594 deaths  in an average population of
 20,561 for the period of five  months of its  duration, or a death
 rate  of one to thirteen.  The first  case, the sailor Schull, July
 26th ; last case, Mrs. M----, December 5th ; height of the epidemic
 September 20 ; mortality 48 ; temperature at mid-day 92 degrees ;
 wind southwest.
   In that brief period, the population was diminished from 28,000
 to 20,561. In 1854, the diminution of population was from 14,000
 to 6,000, and in 1820 from 7,500  to 3,000, and, for a short period,
 to 1,500.
   Thefmonthly  mortality and  comparative table of the  three
 epidemics is  as follows : 
A MALARIAL AND YELLOW FEVER.
23
COMPARATIVE   TABLE  OF  MORTALITY  IN   THREE
                       EPIDEMICS.
Year.	1820.		1854.		1876.	
Mortality...... Death rate.....	3,0 7 1	00 29 in 4 Other Diseases	6,000 1,040 1 in 6		20,000 1,591 1 in 13	
Months.	Yellow fever.		Yellow fever.	Other Diseases	Yellow fever.	Other Diseases
May...........	3 13 14 15					
						
July...........	39 111 214 196 10 3	14 8 18 32 19 24				
September..... October........ November..... December.....			133 390 71 12	124 256 66 501	37 533 287 64 1	139 227 187 81 35
   The epidemic of 1876  did  not spread from foci, and became
 general and all-pervading within seven days from August 21st, date
 of the first pronounced case of the continuous disease. Though con-
 veyed to distant points by currants of air, e. g.:  along the clean
 cut swathes of  the forests around the city, made by the Savannahs
 Skidaway and Seaboard  Railroad and Central Railroad ; though
 conveyed by box and passenger cars, or by boxes of merchandise
 to Isle of Hope, Macon and  points  intermediate, as Whitesville,
 etc., yet in no instance did this  epidemic  exist, propagate  itself,
 and thrive, except within the  corporate  limits of the town.  The
 Atlantic  and Gulf Railroad  passes  out upon  open  fields and
 marshes, and the Charleston Railroad crosses  the Savannah river
 and a short open country, hence the occurrence of cases along their
 routes was rare, whilst on the Central Railroad cases occurred in
 persons who had not been exposed in Savannah.  On the  other
 hand, the orphan school at Bethesda is located two miles from
 Isle of Hope and seven from Savannah, isolated in the midst of a
 forest, and though I cannot ascertain that a special quarantine was
 kept up during the  epidemic, not  a  case  occurred in this large
 school of 100 persons.
  At least 500 citizens  lived at Isle of Hope, going in and out
morning and  evening, enjoying  excellent health during the
epidemic, showing that the place in itself was healthy, though the 
24
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
poison, carried out, plainly and strikingly attacked several persons
who had  not been to Savannah for a long  period.  The only
explanation here is that the poison was conveyed from Savannah,
but did not propagate itself.
  The summer opened with  an extraordinary rainfall of  16^
inches, and afterward the rainfall exceeded the rainfall of previous
years ; the summer was hotter  than for  several  years, and the
winds prevailed from the southwest  in September,  across the low
rotting fields  of Springfield, (see report  of J. R.  Hogg),  whilst
for the three  years previous the northeast winds had prevailed.
  The atmosphere was so loaded with spores of fungi and algse
that all surfaces were  attacked.  Brick walls, wooden structures,
both new and old, paths untrodden were attacked  by mould and
algse, not  weeds and  grass.    Paint oxidized and blackened;
milk soured so rapidly that it was with  difficulty carried around
unchanged to customers ;  meat spoiled so rapidly  and kept upon
ice with such difficulty as to be matter of common comment ; rain
water fresh  fallen  in  gutters,  and  puddles,  were covered  by
a green film in twenty-four hours.  In happy  contrast, all  this is
changed in 1878 ; even the ditches and drains in the low grounds
around the town have remained free of  all green coloring film in
1878.
  The all-pervading and irresistible character of the poison, what-
ever that might be, in the epidemic of 1876, could not fail to be
noted.  During the month of September, not a household escaped
illness, and generally  two, three, five or more were sick at one
time. The uniform character of the attacks was remarkable.   In
all cases, whether of malarial or of the malignant type, the  illness
was  invariably fever, fever,  and yet no class  of diseases are so
varied and protean as the malarial.
           THE MALARIAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE EPIDEMIC.
  It is an error to term this epidemic " a yellow fever epidemic."
The  unvarying testimony thus far given  by both professional and
non-professional observers, defines it as a most extensive and fatal
epidemic  of  malarial  fevers,  merging,  by undefined lines, into
yellow fever.   For  one case  of yellow  fever there occurred a
hundred cases of  malarial  intermittent   and  remittent.   This
feature of the epidemic  of  1876, and  of  every other epidemic
which has visited Savannah is of great importance  in considering
the question  of importation, for malarial germs are not portable, 
A MALARIAL AND YELLOW  FEVER.
25
whilst yellow fever germs are overwhelmingly proved to be portable.
Remove the thousand cases of yellow fever from the epidemic of
1876, and you still have the ten thousand  cases of malarial fever
to  constitute a formidable  epidemic;  and  this is true of the
epidemic  of 1854 and  1820.  It  is safe,  therefore, to  say these
essential and greater parts of the three epidemics  were  not  im-
ported, but were of  local origin.
  Opinions in confirmation of this view of the epidemic are here
given :
  Opinion of Dr. O. A. White, of  New York, who came to Savan-
nah and was present during the continuance  of the epidemic.  In
the  New York Medical Journal, March,  1877, Dr. White reports :
  " An epidemic of a similar nature, however-, to that which pre-
vailed last summer in Savannah,  with such  destructive effect, is
not without precedent in this country.   The posted student of the
literature of  this subject cannot fail to recall  the detailed expe-
rience of Dr. Lewis, of Alabama,  in the hybrid  epidemic, which
he  describes as having appeared in 1842, in Mobile.  In  that
epidemic quite a number of cases were  distinguished, marked by-
evident blending together  of malarial with specific yellow fever
poison, as  ' congestive, simulating yellow fever ;'  and M. Thomas,
in  his very  interesting 'Traite sur  la  Fievre Jaune observee a
New Orleans,' also  affirms he had detected ' a remittent pyrexia'
in several instances among the hosts of cases he so critically passed
in review."
  The reporter of  the  Savannah  Morning News interviewed Dr.
White, and on  September 26th, 1876,  reported  him as follows :
  " Dr. White thinks that the present epidemic is different in very
many essentials from yellow fever, as that fever has heretofore
come under  his medical observation.   That it is  mixed  largely
with the type of malarial fever, and assimilates to what was known
years ago in  Charleston as the neck fever.
  " He is satisfied that  the ordinary treatment for yellow fever
cannot be pursued with effect in the fever  now ravaging our cityj
and that the  good results following the quinine treatment pursued
generally  by  the profession, indicates that the  malaria enters
largely into the  diagnosis of  the disease. "
  The Georgia  State Board of Health, in their report of their
investigation into  the epidemic,  (page 121  of  Second Annual
Report, 1876) say: "That an epidemic of malarial disorders of
an exceedingly acute grade, was prevalent in the city of Savannah, 
26
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
 prior to and subsequent to the month of August, 1876, is shown
 by the testimony of Dr. J. C. LeHardy and others, and the Board
 is strongly of opinion," etc., etc.
   Opinion of Dr. Wm. Duncan, of Savannah (page 17, appendix
 to idem.)  : "I have no  doubt that the local conditions of  the city
 of Savannah were favorable to the spread  of the disease, and I
 think that the malarial element prevailed to a great extent during
 the epidemic."
   The identity of the epidemic of  1820  with this of 1876, as  to
 the malarial intermittent and remittent character, has been already
 given in the words of Dr. Wm. R.  Waring.
   The record of deaths from this epidemic of 1876 is the best
 evidence of its mixed character ; 922 are yellow fever, whilst the
 the total of deaths is 1,591.   Thus one half the deaths are placed
 to the credit of yellow fever, and the other half, being placed  to
 the credit of other diseases, is a  mortality  in itself sufficiently
 great to  constitute an epidemic.   It has never been claimed for
 quinine that it is a remedy  for  yellow fever ; yet the indiscrimi-
nate  resort  to this remedy, and  the benefits derived  from  its
 use, as well  even in convalescence  from yellow fever, is evidence
 of the universality of the malarial element in the epidemic. 
THE CAUSES OF THE EPIDEMIC OF 1876.
  THE DIRECT OR  EXCITING CAUSE :
TWO HUNDRED ACRES OF SURFACE PUTREFACTIONS
  WITHIN THE CORPORATE LIMITS OF SAVANNAH.
   The indirect or proximate causes (not in themselves capable
 of producing an epidemic) :
   1st.  Exceptional meteorological conditions.
   2nd. Exceptional neglect and decay of the elaborate and expen-
 sive system of drainage, carried out in former years by the city
 authorities.
   3d. Exceptional neglect of  the canal known as the Bilbo Canal,
 the large open conduit which conducts all the sewage of the town
 to the river, and which flanks the entire eastern side of  the town.
   4th.  The usual but objectionable condition  of 3,360  (privy)
 vaults.
                       THE DIRECT CAUSE :
   The  low or rice lands of Springfield plantation, will be seen by
 reference  to the " map of Savannah," to lie to the south of the
 Central Railroad embankments.  These  cover 143 acres.   The
 eastern slopes to this tract, marked yellow, which were peculiarly
 wet  and  undrained  preceding and during the epidemic, and
 covered with the scavenger's  garbage and refuse, are twenty  acres
 or  more.   The Vale  Royal  land,  within the corporate limits,
 that is bounded on the west by Musgrove canal, is an area of
 sixty acres.  The total acreage of this tract is therefore 223 acres.
 It had been  thoroughly drained, dried  and cultivated for eight
 years ;  but a singularly  unusual rainfall  of  sixteen and a  half
 inches, occurring between the 11th and 18th June, resulted in the
 conversion of this tract into  an inland lake, which was neglected
 and  not properly drained until the following  October.  When
 these lands were undrained  and covered with water-grasses, any
 extensive and  accidental overflow of them, aggravated the  ordi-
nary malarial  diseases  and  sporadic  yellow fever of the first 
28
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
 quarter of the  century,  as is evidenced  by  the  fever record
 table we publish, and the report of Dr. Wm. R. Waring, in 1821,
 confirmed  by  Dr.   Lemuel  Kollock.   But  Vale  Royal  and
 Springfield lowlands  had  been dry for eight years, the soil was
 interlaced by the roots of plants,  which must have and did die
 and rot when subjected to an  overflow,  whilst the  surface was
 covered with luxuriant crops, as oats, just harvested, whose stacks
 could never be removed, and rotted on the ground, growing corn,
 potatoes and  pea-vines.  These all died and became notoriously
 offensive, so much so that the officials of the railroad and citizens
 made complaint  to  the municipal  authorities, and  through the
 press, to the public.
   Such  extensive putrefactions within  the corporate limits,  must
 have been the result of a growth  of  bacteria, fungi and algse, so
 great that the  mind cannot  possibly take in its myriads.  The
 significance of such in the production of pestilence will  be fully
 appreciated by any one reading the " Researches " of Ferdinand
 Cohn, which we  publish, and the Twelfth and  Seventeenth Re-
 ports of the Medical Officer of H. B. M.'s Privy Council
   A stranger would  suppose  that the drainage  of Springfield
 would be very simple ; but the formidable dangers to these low
 lands were well known to our fathers, and are well known to many
 of their children.
  The first danger is the tremendous body of water  accumulated
 in the  great swamps  of the Ogeechee, which occurs in the won-
 derful falls of rain to  which  we are occasionally subject in the
 summer months ; such as  fell  between  the  9th  and 18th  of
 June, 1876, to the depth of sixteen  and a half inches (see Signal
 Bureau  reports which will appear farther on); and which rainfalls
 were alluded to in 1817, by Dr. Wm. R. Waring in the following
 language when advocating dry culture :
  " There is a periodical recurrence  of heavy rains in the months
 of July and August which may be emphatically entitled the rainy
 season, although the quantity of water is irregular,  being much
greater  sometimes than it is at others.
  " The amount of a single fall of water is frequently astonishing.
 The ground, after it,  looks like a sea.   It does  not drop as in
higher latitudes, but pours in torrents.  This sometimes continues
for ten or twelve days, as in 1820, without the  interruption of an
hour's clear sky." 
THE DIRECT OR EXCITING CAUSE.
29
  At  these times the backwater dam and Springfield canal dam
are liable to overflow and crevasse.
  The second danger is the crossing of the Ogeechee canal mid-
way of the natural drainage of Springfield at a level six feet above
the level  of the  land.  The outlet at the present  time to the
Springfield land was put in by the City Surveyor under my super-
vision, when an Alderman, in 1867, and is a syphon trunk  under
the canal,  unfortunately unable to do the work as thoroughly as
it ought.  The Ogeechee canal is liable to great gluts  of  water in
the great rains, and has frequently burst its banks and submerged
Springfield. Moreover,  the Springfield canal passes under the
Ogeechee  canal by two culverts, which are too small and not low
enough  for the drainage.
  The third danger is the  crossing  of the embankment of the
Central  Railroad,  and the unavoidable culvert under the  embank-
ment to let off the waters.
  Springfield,  when neglected,  becomes a pestilential  swamp
great in size and close in proximity, and is the great danger to
Savannah, enhanced by the prevalence of southwestern winds,
and amongst  many  lesser  causes,  was  the great potential
cause of the epidemic of 1876.  Could  our forefathers rise from
their  graves they would affirm  what I have just  said, and their
public acts spread upon the book of city ordinances point unerr-
ingly to this opinion.

  The official report of John B. Hogg, City Surveyor, testifies to
the correctness of the above facts :

                             City Surveyor's Office,
                         Savannah, Ga., December  11, 1878.
To  the Honorable the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Savannah :
  Gentlemen :  In  accordance with the resolution of  Council re-
quiring  an  official statement of the condition of the western low-
lands, known as Springfield  and Vale Royal Plantations, during
the epidemic of  1876, and the  causes leading thereto, I respect-
fully report:
  1st. That the condition of these lands during the months of June,
July and August, 1876,  preceding the epidemic and at its height
was very exceptional as compared with previous years.   1st. Be-
cause during the years of the war, and  also during  1865 and 1866,
they  were  subject to a  steady and continuous overflow, which 
30
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
covered them  with water grasses and water growth of  every
description.  2d.  Because subsequent to 1867 they were, with the
exception of a brief overflow in 1871,  in continuous dry  culture,
the soil covered with highland grasses and cultivated  in high
land crops.  3d.  Because from 1864  to 1876  certain portions of
the lands had  been the depository of garbage and offal of the city,
but kept dry,  and therefore harmless ; and 4th.  Because in  the
year 1876,  by providential causes,  which are explained  below,
these lands were  overflowed  in  June, and, to a great extent,
reverted to their former bad condition,  and were not drained off
effectually  until  October of that  year. Decay  of  the  growing
crops, weeds  and  grasses and garbage  was the  result, and an
offensiveness  which was very  noticeable.
  In relation to the causes producing the overflow of these lands
a brief description of their character and location is necessary to
convey a correct idea to those unacquainted with them.
  The Springfield plantation as a body consists of 960 acres of
land situated on  the western side of the city.  About 230  aci-es of
the tract are  swamp land, of  which 150 acres have been  cleared,
and were formerly planted in rice.   This portion had never been
embraced in  the  dry culture contract,  and the object of the pur-
chase of the Springfield property in 1850 by the city of Savannah
was to bring  these lowlands under  the conditions appertaining
to  other dry  culture lands.   The 150 acres alluded to lie at the
base of the western slope of the city, and extend along the south-
ern half  of the  western boundary.   The low lands of the Vale
Royal  plantation  are  a continuation  of the same swamp and
occupy the northern half.  They contain about----acres.
  All this  lowland is of  alluvial formation, and known as tide
lands.  Were  the  tide admitted they  would be  covered  to  the
depth of one  foot at high water.  They are protected from inun-
dation  by  embankments or levees along the river.  This body of
land is two miles in length and about  one-quarter of a  mile in
width.
  The  uncleared portion  of  this  swamp extends  in a southerly
direction a distance of  a mile and a quarter, where it unites with
a series of  swamps having a fall toward the Ogeechee river, the
whole  length  of the portion draining into the  Savannah being
three and one-quarter miles.  The drainage originally was throuo-h
a natural channel or creek meandering through the land, but is
now conveyed to  the river by means  of  a canal located on the 
THE DIRECT OR EXCITING CAUSE.
31
 western margin, and known  as the Springfield canal,  and used
 only to carry off the waters of the uncleared swamp, a sewer com-
 menced in 1860, but not completed until 1868, and known as the
 Springfield sewer, being the  medium  through which the cleared
 lands, both of Springfield and a large portion of Vale Royal, are
 drained.  This sewer was a covered wooden box, rectangular in
 shape, but for some time previous to, and during the epidemic, the
 covering had, to a great extent, been removed.  It extends from
 the river, through the Vale Royal tract, up to Springfield, the
 open ditches draining  the Springfield lands connecting with and
 draining into it.
   The extraordinary rainfall  preceding  the epidemic of  1876,
 which caused the inundation of these lands, commenced on the
 11th of  June and  continued  until the 20th, as follows: On the
 lltb, 2:47 inches; on the 12th, 3:34 inches; on the 13th, 0:42  inch;
 on the 14th,  4:16 inches;  on the 15th, 2:04 inches;  on the  16th,
 0:37 inch;  on the  17th, 1:37 inches;  on the 20th,  2:54 inches;
 total, 17:74 inches.   From the 20th to the end of the month the
 rainfall was one and one-half  inches.
   A word or two in relation to the system of draining the  lands
 described  is  necessary to a clear understanding  of the causes
 leading to the overflow which occurred during the prevalence of
 these rains.
   The Springfield canal has an average width of about thirty feet,
 is two miles  in length, and, as previously stated, is the  outlet for
 the waters of  the uncleared swamp lands  lying above.  To pre-
 vent the influx of tide water up this canal two trunks were placed
 in an embankment, closing up the canal at a point distant about
 three hundred miles from its mouth.   The gates of  these trunks
 are self-acting, opening riverwards when the tide is  out, thereby
 giving vent to the waters of the swamp which have accumulated,
 and closing  as soon  as  the returning tide has reached a  level
 higher than the water in the canal.   The canal, therefore, becomes
 a reservoir for the swamp waters, which can  only escape when the
 tide has fallen to a lower level.  The  Springfield sewer operates
 in substantially the same manner, being provided with a similar
 trunk at the river end.
  A short time previous to the setting in of  the rains one of the
trunks connected with the canal blew out,  giving free ingress and
egress  to  the  tides.  In order to prevent this, and  at  the same
time give an opportunity of  replacing the trunk, an embankment 
32
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
was thrown across the canal.  This embankment had  just  been
completed, and the work of replacing the trunk begun when the
rain  set in, as  will be seen by reference  to the rainfall above.
Nearly six inches of rain fell on the first two days.  The accumu-
lation of water within the canal was therefore very great, and it
became necessary on the third day  (Tuesday)  to  cut  away the
embankment  to permit this water to escape.  On the  fourth day
(Wednesday) the rainfall amounted to 4.16 inches.  Backed  up
twice every twenty-four hours by the incoming tide the accumula-
tion of water became so great after this day's rain that the  em-
bankment of  the  canal next to the lowland was tapped in many
places, more especially between  the  mouth of  the canal and the
Central  railroad,  which  crosses  it by an  open bridge at a point
about three-fourths of a mile above.  This  portion of the embank-
ment was not in good  order, and became quickly  broken in  sev-
eral  places.   The bank once broken no impediment remained to
prevent  the constant  overflow  of  the portion of the Vale Royal
plantation adjoining, not only from the waters of the swamp, but
during every  high water from the river.   The open Springfield
sewer at once received and conducted these waters to the Spring-
field  lowlands, inundating the greater portion.
  I would here  call attention to the want of capacity in  the two
culverts under  the Savannah and Ogeechee canal, which crosses
the Springfield canal a short distance  above  the  point at which
the Central railroad  crosses, and to the effect produced thereby.
During any heavy rainfall, even when the canal is in other respects
in good working order, the water above these culverts is found at
a higher level than below.   The difference  of level on the present
occasion amounted to nearly two feet, and  resulted in  producing
a slight overflow of the embankments next to Springfield, which
here  were in much better condition than next to the Vale Royal
tract.
  The condition of things described above continued during the
whole period of the rains, which  lasted until Monday, the 21st
eight days, as  also for nearly a week after  they  ceased.  The
amount  of  water which had accumulated in the  swamps above
was so great that  no work could be done  on the  embankments,
and  the tide continued to ebb and flow over the lands.   As  soon
as possible the banks were repaired and the tide shut out, but in
the meantime, an  injury had been done to  the drainage of these
lands, which  was  not entirely  relieved until  the  epidemic had 
THE DIRECT OR EXCITING CAUSE.
33
nearly ceased.  The extensive putrefaction of animal and vegeta-
ble matters caused an offensiveness noticeable and publicly com-
mented on.
      I remain, gentlemen,  your obedient  servant,
                              John B.  Hogg, City Surveyor.

  The following paper was published in the Savannah Morning
News, immediately after the close  of the epidemic, December 20th,
1876.  The  paper herewith published, leaves little to change and
little to add to the views then expressed  :

THE EPIDEMIC OF SAVANNAH,  1876—ITS  CAUSES—CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE
              STATE BOARD OF HEALTH—PAPER NO. 6.
  The reasonable and unprejudiced man will always account for
an  exceptional  epidemic  of  sickness in  any country by seeking
those conditions and  circumstances  which, not  existing before,
were in full force just before and  during  that exceptional epidemic.
The man so reasonably  inclined will be forcibly led to conclude
that  that epidemic, and  those new and unusual conditions and
circumstances, stand in the relation  of effect and cause.
  The causes of the late epidemic may be divided into meteoro-
logical,  administrative and topographical.

                     METEOROLOGICAL CAUSES.
   The exceptional meteorological causes will be seen  at a glance
in the following table of averages for the months of July, August
and September, in  1873,  1874, 1875,  1876.  Mean average  tem-
perature for June, July, August  and September, condensed from
Signal Bureau reports:
	Tempei	*ature.	Rainfall. 4.89 7.61 3.92 8.60	Wind.	Wind. Sept. NE NE NE SW	
Year.	Highest.	Mid-night. 75.7 75.4 74 4 78 0		June, July, Aug.		Velocity.
1873 1874 1875 1876	95.2 94.0 95.2 98.0			SW SE S SW		3.9 4.4 4.4 2.7
  It will  be seen that this summer has been hotter by day and
hotter by night  than for four years ; that the rainfall has been
considerably greater ; indeed,  that last June  the rain fall during
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THE DIRECT OR EXCITING CAUSE.
35
                     ADMINISTRATIVE CAUSES.
   " The exaeptional administrative causes are now well known to
 the people of Savannah.   Ten years ago a reform in the drainage
 and sewerage  systems of the town was commenced, and vigor-
 ously  pressed  to  a very  fairly  complete  system.  This  system
 for eight years  has been under  the charge of Mr. J. K. Munner-
 lyn, the Dry Culture Inspector, and he has in each of these years,
 until this year, kept these systems of drains, canals and sewers in
 thorough order by constant  and frequent workings, the  Cedar
 Grove  and Springfield lowlands  and the Bilbo canal being con-
 stantly worked  and the latter canal flowed and disinfected twice
 a week.   This year not a drain has been  touched  nor the Bilbo
 canal flowed.  The whole system upon which the people of Savan-
 nah had cheerfully spent such large sums was as unfit for the
 purposes intended  as if it had never existed.  Had this  been  a
 dry j'ear and there had been no rains nothing would have hap-
 pened ;  but the floods came and the unusual heat prevailed and
 the sirocco blew from the southwest, with deadly result.
   " Still another fact cannot  be overlooked.  The traps  to our
 sewers, and the sewers themselves, were  not supplied with water,
 watched  carefully  and properly  washed out during June, July
 and August, and their offensiveness was notorious.  At a later
 date, toward the end of August, the water was turned on and the
 evil remedied.
                     TOPOGRAPHICAL CAUSES.
   " The topographical causes are the legitimate sequence of the
 meteorological and the administrative.
   " The heavy rains of summer raised  the water level upon the city
 plateau.  Mr. Alfred Kent, the pump  contractor, had found it
 difficult  for several years  to  keep the  pumps in order, and for
 several years his work has been severe  in deepening the wells all
 over the town.  But  in 1876 not a well after June gave any
 trouble.   The effect of  this  rise  of water  was to  keep  all the
privy vaults soaked and peculiarly offensive from  their putrefaction,
 a thing wholly different from former years.
  "Lured into  security by years of immunity from disease, the
 wise precautions of former years were neglected and exposed to
 the deadly result of a season of excessive rainfall, unusual heat and
 unfavorable winds.  The consequent pestilential miasms were in
 some degree  deadly and excessive beyond  the  record of years, 
36
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
and the animal putrefactions in our sewers, and in their  great
single  outlet, were confessedly offensive and excessive.
  "We all now  confess and know  the exceptional &n& excessive
putrefactions of animal and vegetable matters in and around this
town before and during our epidemic.  These putrefactions could
not exist at all without the plant growths and their spores, the
proven contagium  or poison of all forms of malarial diseases, fever,
etc.  And the contagia or spores or  germs of the yellow fever of
this epidemic of 1876 are to be found in the putrefaction ferments
of the Bilbo canal,  Springfield lowlands, the scavenger offal beds,
the privy vaults and unclean sewers."
  In few words,  the epidemic  of malignant malarial  fever and
genuine yellow fever in Savannah, 1876, has been caused by the
EXCEPTIONALLY GREAT MASSES OF PUTREFACTION,
AND  THE  INDISSOLUBLE  AND  ESSENTIAL  CRYPTO-
GAMIC  FERMENT  PLANT  GROWTH, WHOSE SPORES
WERE THE PUTREFACTIVE  CONTAGIUM OF  THE EPI-
DEMIC.
LETTER FROM DR. WARING TO DR.  McFARLAND.
THE  SCAVENGER  DEPOSITS OF  OFFAL  AND  GARBAGE  IN  THE  MOST
        DANGEROUS PART OF THE CITY.--OCTOBER  23,  1876.
Dr. J. T.  McFarland,  Health Officer  and Chairman of Committee
  on Sanitary Measures :
  Dear Sir:  I had occasion, on the 18th inst., to refer you to
Alderman  Douglass for information of  a  very serious nature
affecting the health of Savannah.  I asked you then if your com-
mittee had visited and  inspected the  slope of  the hill stretching
westward to Springfield plantation and extending from the Ark-
wright Cotton Factory  to the fence  of Laural Grove Cemetery.
The water springs out upon this slope at every point, making it
intensely malarial.  It is upon  this slope, amid water, mud and
maggots, that the City Scavenger has  deposited the offal and Gar-
bage of Savannah, a feast for buzzards and a home for the yellow
fever fiend.  Trust me, I do  not use too strong language.  By 
THE DIRECT OR EXCITING CAUSE.
37
reference  to  the Signal Bureau reports  of prevailing  winds it
would appear that  no  more unfortunate spot could have been
selected:
| 1873. | 1874.			1875. | 1876.	
September.....................	S. W. S. s. w. N. E.	S. E. S. E. N. E. N. E.	S. S. W. s. N. E.	s. w. s. w. s. s. w.
  It is to the windward of the town, on a western slope, soaking wet,
and fully exposed to the hot western sun.  This spot smells like a
butcher pen; and  throughout the last summer these putrescent
exhalations have mingled with the rotting and stinking vegetation
of neglected Springfield, only separated by a narrow drain full of
water.  All the conditions for yellow fever poison, it  must be evi-
dent, are and have been since June 10th, the date of the overflow,
in full force here, to  be wafted  steadily into and on  this devoted
town by the south  and southwest winds.  For this  there can be
no excuse.   The President of the Central Railroad, I am credibly
informed, as far back as July, complained to the authorities of the
annoyance.  I myself called  on the Mayor on the 16th of  Septem-
ber and told him I had driven off the  buzzards and intercepted
the carts at these heaps.  He said he had sent a policeman to see
about this matter.   And yet, as  I have before intimated to you,
Alderman  Douglass ordered  these carts away on  the 17th of
October.
  The slope for these deposits is well known  to be a quarter of a
mile within the city limits, and on the edge of a dense population
of poor people. It  seems to me a sad inconsistency  that  you
close your  report  with these words:  "In concluding, the com-
mittee would simply add that the city authorities  and the officers
have our entire confidence,"  &c, &c.
  Though differing with  you in relation to these  public matters,
I have the honor to assure you of my personal regard and respect.
                            Very truly yours,
                                           James J. Waring. 
 
UPON  QUARANTINE.
UPON THE  POSSIBILITY OR PROBABILITY
      OF IMPORTATION OF YELLOW
           FEVER EPIDEMICS.
IF THESE EPIDEMICS ARE IMPORTED FROM HAVANA OR
 OTHER TOWNS OF CUBA, THEN THE ONLY PROTECTION
 IS NOT QUARANTINE, BUT A COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH
 SPAIN CREATING A JOINT SANITARY COMMISSION TO EN-
 FORCE SANITARY LAWS, AND A REFORM OF STREETS,
 SCAVENGERING, VENTILATION, ETC., IN THAT ISLAND. 
 
UPON  QUARANTINE.
  There seems to me  to be much confusion in the minds of the
various advocates of, on the one side the exotic or foreign origin
of yellow fever, and on the other of the domestic or local origin.
The facts of the history of epidemics are these:
  1st.  It has been the universal experience  of human observa-
tion that pestilences, and amongst these eminently the plague and
yellow  fever,  are filth  or  putrefaction  diseases.   Admitted.
What is filth ?  What is putrefaction ?   Organic matters are filth
so soon as putrefaction begins, not before.   When they become
offensive to the senses of sight and smell, they  are filth.   Now
what is putrefaction ?  Putrefaction is one form of fermentation,
and the fermentations are—
       1. Alcoholic,             1
       2. Acetic,                j
       3. Butyric  or Lactic, and \- Fermentation.
       4. Ammoniacal,
       5. Putrefactive,          J
   And fermentation.  What is fermentation ?  With the death of
Liebio1 has passed away the chemical school with its catalytic, nas-
sent and atomic theories, and it  would be a bold scientist  who
would deny the crucial evidence of M. Pasteur (Ann. Chimie Phys,,
4th series, vol. 25, p. 145,  1872) that fermentation is a change of
chemical composition, in organic compounds, brought about by  a
certain class of plants which deprived of the power of drawing the
essential elements of their composition from  the  air, propagate
themselves in the  very substance of organic matters of  all kinds
bv breaking up these matters and appropriating such elements as
are necessary to their own growth.   Chlorophyl (green coloring
of plants)  endows plants with the power to live on air.  A certain
class of plants—the fungi—having  no chlorophyl cannot live on
air and, therefore, live  on organic matters already brought into
existence by higher orders of beings, whether animal or plant.
Fermentation is, therefore, "life without air,"  and science has ad-
vanced far enough to say:  "This plant, seen  and plated, invariably
makes alcoholic fermentation;  that plant, seen and  plated, as in- 
 42                THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.

 variably makes acetic vinegar fermentation, and the alcoholic fer-
 ment plant will not make vinegar fermentation, nor the vinegar fer-
 ment plant make alcoholic fermentation."
   Further, all organic matters remain unchanged indefinitely, or
forever if unattacked by this class of plants.  (See  Pasteur's ex-
 periments.)  And further, these  plants attack living organic mat-
 ter with as much vigor and power as dead  organic  matter.   The
 Isaria will destroy spiders, the Perinosporum Infestaws will destroy
 potato vines, and the Spirochsete Obermeiri destroys man by ap-
 propriating into their bodies, and without air the very building ma-
 terial  and elements of living structure.  Further,  these plants,
 though living without air, can live  in the air, and though  able to
 attack living beings, can nevertheless live on dead organic matter
 and multiply inimitably, prepared  at any moment  to  attack the
 living.
   Still further, these plants have in certain instances two forms ;
 living in one form in or on one  living structure, and its  seeds or
 germs developing into another form upon  other living structure.
 The Eurosium of the Barbury plant is the rust of wheat.   Just as
 the bitter almond is the sport or variety of  the sweet almond, not
 distinguishable to the  eye, the one deadly and the other innocent,
 so the Bacillus Anthracis is  the sport or  variety of the  Bacillus
 Subtilis, undistinguishable to the  microscopic eye,  one the  inno-
 cent cause of decay in swamp water, the other the deadly poison
 of living animals.  This is polymorphism.
   The atmosphere is at ail times loaded with the  seeds or spores
 of these plants.  Their botany is still in its infancy; nevertheless
 this is elicited.  The more elevated  above  the level of the  sea is
 the atmosphere, the freer is it of these seeds, or germs, or spores.
 The atmosphere of the Jura was found destitute of spores by ex-
 periment. (SeeTyndall.)  So also atmospheres differ at times and
 by circumstances in the amount of these spores, and atmospheres
 otherwise loaded can be readily filtered of  spores through cotton.
 Certain, the large majority of these fungi and their spores are cosmo-
 politan, found everywhere,  but certain well defined species are found
 in certain localities—can readily be transplanted,  but to develop  or
 propagate in other localities must be transported.
   But certain varieties, or sports, from  innocent to deadly  varie-
 ties, are  more readily possible  in  these low forms  of  life than in
 the higher.   Here is a broad  and reasonably possible field for the
 polymorphism of cosmopolitan species. 
UPON QUARANTINE.
43
   If putrefactions are putrefactive fermentations, and hence are
 the result of the growth of living beings, how the mind is startled
 by the paradox, "decay is another form of life."
   "Putrefaction is a corelative phenomenon, not of death, but of
 life."   Ferdinand Cohn's Biologie der Pflanzen, vol. 2d.
   Pasteur thus defines putrefaction.  Comp. Rend., June, 1863:
   "When, in a putrescible liquid, containing albuminoid organic
 matter, the dissolved oxygen has been  absorbed, and has com-
 pletely disappeared under  the influence of the first infusoria de-
 veloped, such as the Monas crepusculum, and the Bacterum termo,
 'the vibrio ferments, which  do not require this gas to sustain their
 life, begin to show themselves, and putrefaction is immediately
 set  up.  It is  accelerated  by degrees,  following the  progressive
 increase of the  vibrios.  As to the putridity, it becomes so intense,
 that the  examination of a single drop  of the  liquid, under the
 microscope, is a very painful  task.'
   " It follows, from what has been said, that contact  of air is by
 no means necessary for the development of putrefaction.  On the
 contrary, if the oxygen dissolved in a putrescible liquid was not
 at once removed by the action ol special organism, putrefaction
 would  not take place ;  the  oxygen would destroy the vibrios
 which would try to develop at first."
   If yellow fever and putrefaction, are  closely related  as cause
 and effect, then there  is a  similar indissoluble  link between, or
 relation as cause and effect, between yellow fever and the Bacteria
 of Cohn (or vibrios of Pasteur) of putrefaction, etc.
   All this  being true  and  admitted,  in  what  respect  are  the
 putrefaction bacteria of  the West  India Islands different from
 the  putrefaction bacteria of the American coast, and does history
 and experience  prove this difference ?
   The violent assertion of the necessity of importation of the bac-
 teria is as  unreasonable as  the equally violent assertion of  the
 exclusively local origin of these bacteria on the American coast,
 are not these theories both right and both wrong ? It did not need
 the  sad evidence of  the epidemic  up  the Mississippi valley in
 1878 to prove the possibility of the transplanting of these bacteria
 from one point to another, the common sense of all botany proved
 that long ago.   That is not  the question  which presses home
 upon the people of Savannah.  That other botanical  question
concerns them.   Can innocent cosmopolitan  varieties of bacteria
be rapidly cultured into deadly sports or varieties ? 
44
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
  That is the tradition of  this town ;  that has  been the belief of
its  ablest men, and its remarkable sanitary  laws and sanitary
efforts have been based upon that belief.
  That other common sense result of all botanical experience that
a plant will  languish and die if it has not food to live on, is evi-
denced in the death of the late  Wm. H. Tison.   There cannot  be
a doubt that the bacteria which killed him lived through the hot
months of the summer of 1877  in the  house on Jones street, and
were as effective for propagation as any imported bacteria, and yet
no one was alarmed and no  spread or epidemic  resulted through
the hot  months of 1877.
  In this connection the language of  Dr. Cunningham, the Sani-
tary Commissioner with the  government of India, is reasonable
upon the irrational methods  of quarantine.—Journal of the Society
of Arts, April 28, 1876, p. 528.  " The year 1872 was  an epidemic
year in India of cholera."  *   *  *  " This outbreak was carefully
studied by Dr. Cunningham."     *    *    *   *    *     *
  " In respect to the effect of quarantine in stopping  the progress
of cholera in this epidemic, Dr. Cunningham states that  quaran-
tine was tried in the hope of protecting a number of the canton-
ments in Upper India,  that in many of them it signally failed, and
that in no single instance is there any ground for believing that it
was productive of any good; and he further  observes that the
direct evils of quarantine in  stopping commerce and intercourse
are great in  themselves, but many indirect evils arise from it, and
among these by no means the least is, that so long as men believe
that they can escape from cholera by such means, they will never
be fully alive to the importance of the greatest safeguard, sanitary
improvement; and he  adds that whatever opinion may be held  on
theoretrical questions, the great work to be done is to perfect and
extend sanitary improvements among the population."
  At a meeting of the  India section of the Society of Arts, Edwin
Chad wick, C. B., in the chair.   *  *  The Chairman said:  *   *   *
  "A  reactionary course, that has threatened interference with the
course of sanitation in India, has been in directing attention to
personal  contagion  as the chief means of preventing the spread
of disease, by the re-enforcement of quarantines, the working of
which we had examined, and upon that examination had declared
them to be useless and mischievous, even  upon the hypothesis  on
which they were maintained.  In  the illustration of the different
doctrines and of the courses of action upon them, I may mention 
UPON QUARANTINE.                     45
that on my first  sanitary inquiries, on  occasions of  severe visita-
tions of typhus fever in towns and villages, I found people—medi-
cal men as well as others—overlooking  the stagnant marshes and
cesspools, and disregarding the evolution of the foul gases amidst
which  they  were living, maintaining positively that the disease
had been imported by tramps—for had not the first outbreak been
in the common lodging  house?—which was true; but it was also
true that the common lodging house was more overcrowded and
in a worse  sanitary condition than ordinary  dwellings, and was
just the place in which, on current  sanitary  principles, any such
pestilence might be expected to appear.  The remedy, however,
then held to be was just the same as in the plague, and now in the
cholera a cordon sanitaire  against the beggars, " stamping " out
the disease  by burning the clothes of the infected, and  so  on.
Now, by  the sanitary course taken under Lord Shaftesbury's Act,
when  properly executed, the " stamping "  out  has been effective
by the drainage of the common lodging houses, by the introduction
of pure supplies of  water, by the introduction of the water closet,
for the immediate removal  of all fouled waste water and excreta,
by ventilation, and by  the prevention of overcrowding, and by
cleaned bedding.  By these means, common  lodging houses  in-
stead of  being the  first, are the  last to be  attacked, and are in a
sanitary  condition and exemption from epidemic visitations, which
contrast strongly with the conditions of  the  wage classes  and
their dwellings.   The like has been the course in India, where it
has been held to be an  undoubted fact there,  as well as here, that
epidemics,  and  especially  the cholera, were  carried  solely  by
human communications, as by pilgrims.  Is not its first develop-
ment displayed at the great fairs in  India where they assemble ?
Truly  so.  But those vast fairs are fairs of  vast filth, of vast over-
crowding, of bad feeding, of  depression, and  susceptibility, from
weakness from  these  causes.  The  operations  first  conducted
against these causes at a great fair  at Congeum, by Mr.  Robert
Ellis, of  Madras, were by the enforcement of cleanliness, by sup-
plies of pure water, by pure and sufficient supplies of food, by the
prevention of overcrowding, by separation.   By  such  means the
regular outbreaks of cholera,  then and since, have been " stamped
out " at those fairs,  and the people now hold them with the same
immunity from such epidemics that the tramps have here  in well
regulated common  lodging houses—the  disease continuing its 
46
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH1.
ravages on the unregulated and ill-conditioned dwellings of the
stationary wage classes of the population."
  It is certainly true that the bacteria of yellow fever, propagated
year after year in Havana, can be transplanted to the American
coast, and are transplanted, though hard to prove.  The rational
method of  relief from this quarter is  not quarantine,  but a com-
mercial  treaty with  Spain, which would enable  commissioners to
enforce  and remodel the Spanish towns, and enforce, through an
effective police, sanitary laws.  Havana is only another Indian fair,
and only needs similar treatment for final relief.
  "The Indian Government has  placed these  assemblies  under
strict sanitary supervision.   Before the assembling of the  multi-
tudes the  encampment  is  marked out, the water supplies are
protected from  pollution,  surface cleanliness  is  enforced,  and
arrangements made for deposit in safe places of all refuse.   The
good  results of these arrangements were illustrated in a  fair at
Manickpur in Oudh, attended by 125,000  persons, accompanied
by at least 40,000 bullocks; cholera was prevalent  in the district
at the time, but there was an entire absence of cholera at the fair."—
Journal  of  the Society of Arts, p. 529.
  Whilst  the evidence of transportation from town  to town is
overwhelming in this country, it is  equally remarkable that in
Savannah the importation from abroad stands entirely unproven.
See the  testimony of Dr. Wm. R. Waring in 1820, John E.  Ward,
Mayor, in 1854, and Edward C. Anderson,  Mayor, and Dr. Mc-
Farland, Health  Officer,  1876.  On   the  contrary, Dr.  Wm. R.
Waring testifies, in  1820, and is corroborated by Dr. Lemuel Kol-
loch, as  his experience since 1780, that the yellow fever occurred
continuously in all these years up to  1820, without importation^
The history of the fever record placed side by side with the sani-
tary efforts of the town corroborates  this view.  See comparative
table  on page 23.
      DIRECT EVIDENCE OF NON-IMPORTATION.

  1.  The testimony of Mayor E. C. Anderson before State Board
of Health, 1876.   (See appendix, p. v., of report of State Board of
Health.)   " No cases of yellow fever on vessels arriving here  were
brought to my official notice;  the quarantine was in force and
vessels from infected ports were kept in quarantine.   Some  were 
UPON QUARANTINE.
47
detained so long that the Spanish Consul became impatient  and
made complaint about the delay."
  2. The testimony before  same, 1876, of  Dr. J.  T.  McFarland,
Health  Officer, page viii., idem:  "Don't believe yellow fever was
brought here at all."
  3. The letter of Consul General Henry C. Hall,  upon the impos-
sibility  of  importation, dated October 21st, 1876, and on file in
the custom house at Savannah:
  *   *  *   "Its  (the yellow fever)  prevalence  in  Havana has
been  to no greater extent than during other years.   It prevailed
also in other places, but to a very limited extent.  At Matanzas
there were a few cases; at Cardenas no cases;  at Cienfuegos, Trin-
idad,  and Santiago de Cuba there were several cases.  In  all of
these places yellow fever has prevailed in other years to as great
extent, proportionately, as in Havana."
  4. The following letter is also significant.  It was addressed to
Thomas Gadsden, Cashier of the Merchants' National Bank, by
LeBaron & Son, of Pensacola, and dated October 7, 1876:
  "Dear Sir:   *  *  *  I am desirous of knowing how the yel-
low fever got to Savannah.
  " The enclosed slip  says it was taken there by vessels from
Havana.  We have  had  a number of vessels here from Havana
and have had no sickness on board of  any of them, and though
we have a quarantine it is stupidly managed.   This city has been
and continues remarkably healthy."
  5.  The arrival and record of Spanish vessels.  In the report of
Dr. G. H. Stone to the United  States Marine  Hospital  Service
Department, Washington, will be found  the following, well au-
thenticated:
  First case—A sailor named  Schull, of schooner Severs, from
New  York, perfectly  well on arrival, taken sick July  26, fourteen
days  after; admitted to hospital July 28, died July 30.
  Second case—Thomas Cleary; date of attack August 6.
  Third case—Patrick Cleary;  date of attack August 17.
  Fourth case—Child of John Lynch, attended by Dr. Read; date
of attack and  death only one day later.
  By the records of quarantine and custom house all  vessels arriv-
ing after  June 1st had clean bills of health,  excepting the Maria
Carlina, which arrived  at Tybee August 2nd;  came up to city
August 16th.   Her record reads thus :  One man  died  on the
voyage ; Captain is familiar with yellow fever  ; says it was not 
48                THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.

yellow fever ; the man was old; did not turn yellow after death ;
did not have black vomit; the vessel was in quarantine till August
15th ; one  man was  taken  sick  at quarantine, not with yellow
fever ; had yellow fever in  hospital four weeks afterward.   The
Maria Carlina arriving as  late as the 16th could not have pro-
duced the disease in either one of the four first cases reported.
The Olympia arrivrd September 27.
                THE INDIRECT EVIDENCE.
   1st.  The importation of the epidemics of 1820-1854 are formally
 denied in the official reports of  Dr. Wm. R. Waring for 1820 and
 Mayor John E. Ward for 1854.
   Report to Council, 1820, by Dr. Wm. R. Waring:
   *   *  *  "It was said by some individuals to  have been brought
from the coast of Africa in a brig called the Raminez, which had
 on board a cargo of new  negroes.   Unfortunately, however, for
 this hypothesis the Raminez  did not only arrive with a healthy
 crew and entire freedom from  any  malignant  disease, but  she
 arrived  some  time after the  fever had grown into considerable
 extent and severity. I have already  stated that some rapid and
 insidious cases occurred in June, and that fourteen deaths took
 place in  that month.  I have stated that Mr. Patrick Stanton even
 died of black vomit on the 16th July.  The Raminez  came into
 p jrt on the 22d.  It was not, and could not be, an African disease.
 From  the 23d of May to the 20th of  July there came five vessels
 from the West Indies and one  from  New  Orleans.  I have  not
 been able to learn of any others.  On the 23d of May brig Rover,
 Captain  James, from Havana;  on 2d of June schooner Phantom,
 Havansi; on the 13th of  June schooner Charles, New Orleans; on
 the  24th of June sloop Darien,  St. Domingo;  on the 27th of June
 schooner Isabella,  Matanzas;  and on July 20th a vessel to Green
 & Lippit, from St.  Domingo.
   '' It appears from inquiry, as to the state of  these vessels, that
 the  crews were healthy, and there was nothing in relation to them
 which could authorize a belief of their either having severe disease
 on board, or the power of propagating any disease whatever." * * *
   Mayor Ward, report 1854, says:
   *  *   *   " Various causes have been assigned by different indi-
 viduals for the existence of the  disease during the past season.  I 
UPON QUARANTINE.
49
have felt it my duty to carefully investigate them.  The first cause
assigned was the introduction of the fever into our city from the
brig Charlotte  Hague, which put into Cockspur Roads about the
29th of June.  She was a Danish brig,  bound  from  Havana to
Copenhagen.  She was visited on the 30th by the Port Physician,
Dr. Mackall, who reported two slight cases of sickness on board.
It having been asserted that some of the men brought from  her
to the  city  died  of  the yellow fever, I have used every  effort to
obtain evidence to prove the fact, but I have  found no proof to
satisfy  my  own  mind that there  was  any case of  yellow fever
brought up  to the city from that vessel, and I herewith submit for
your consideration a letter from  Dr. Mackall  and one from  Dr.
Wragg, the  attending physicians  of the Savannah Infirmary, to
which all the men were carried.   Dr.  Chartres being absent  I
have been unable to obtain an answer from him."
  The nature of the poison of yellow fever is such, nevertheless,
that it can be imported if the views of the germ theory of disease
be admitted in  explanation.
  2d. The deposit of certain stone  ballast at the Atlantic and Gulf
railroad wharf from Spanish vessels has  been  charged  with being
the medium of importation,  just as the  deposit of dredge mud in
this very neighborhood in 1854 was also believed to have   been  a
cause  of production.  This  ballast was used to macadamize the
roadways of the wharf, and came from a locality southwest of
Regla and about two miles  from  the  harbor.  See  Woodhull's
report, The  American Journal of Medical Sciences, page 37:
  *   *  *  "At that place are low (' little')  hills which  are  dry,
and in  no  way  subject to drainage from human habitations, of
which there are few in that  neighborhood, the  nearest  being  a
fourth of a  mile distant.   The ballast is dug  from these hills, and
is carried from the quarries to the  ships, by which it is bought as
needed.  Regla, the nearest town,  is thought to be healthier than
Havana, and in summer many families move  to the neighborhood
of the hills  from that city.  This  is entirely confirmed  by Dr.
Belot,  who says: ' The gray ballast referred to is  a  native rock
taken from the side of a hill in West Regla, about forty feet above
the level of  the  sea,'  and that it  does  not contain any debris or
organic matter whatever.  That excellent authority further says:
' I do not believe that the fresh ballast  referred to will, of itself,
in any way influence the development of yellow fever.  If such
4 
50
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
 were the case the disease would manifest itself as soon as the bal-
 last is taken in.'"
   3d. Yellow fever existed in Savannah every year  of the first
 quarter of the present century ; see table of Mortuary Fever rec-
 ord,  taken from the records  in  the Clerk's office  of  the city
 council.
   The  bitter  controversies which existed in the first half of the
 last century upon  the  question of  importation  of yellow fever
 from the East Indies to the West Indies, is certainly significant,
 and suggests doubt as to the probability of importation  when filth
 and  nastiness prevail  in  towns.   [A treatise on Plague and
 Yellow Fever, by James Tytler, compiler of the Medical Part of
 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1779 ; pages  372, 373, 374.]
   *  *  *  "When Columbus first visited the West India islands,
 we hear  nothing of his  having found such a disease exisiting
 there ;  nor does it  appear that it  was known among the  many
 Spanish adventurers who succeeded  him, and who subdued such
 immense tracts on the southern continent.   Soon after  the settle-
 ment of some of the West India islands, however, by other Euro-
 pean nations,  this disease began to make  its appearance, though
 at  what time  is still uncertain.  Dr. Hillary says, that " as we
 have no accounts of this disease in the ancients, nor even in the
 Arabian writers, who lived  and practiced in the hot climate, we
 must give  it some name ; "  and he calls it the putrid bilious fever.
 "From the best and most authentic account, (adds he)  that I can
 obtain,  and also from the nature and symptoms of the  disease, it
 appears to be  a disease that is indigenous [naturally belonging to
 the  climate]  to  the West  India islands  and  the  continent of
 America, which is situated between the tropics, and most probably
 to all other countries within the torrid zone.   But I cannot con-
 ceive what were the motives which induced Dr. Warren to think
 that this fever was first  brought from Palestine to Marseilles, and
 from  thence to Martinique, and  so to Barbadoes, about thirty-
 seven years since (1721  or 1722).  A better inquir}7 would have
 informed him, that this  fever had frequently appeared in this and
 other West India islands, many years before ; for  several judi-
 cious practioners, who were then, and are  now living here, whose
 business was visiting the sick the greater part of their life time,
 some of them almost eighty years of age, remember to  have seen
 this fever  frequently in this island, not only many years before
that time, but many years before that learned gentleman came to it. 
UPON QUARANTINE.
51
   " To the same purpose Dr.  Mosely says, " Warren, though  he
 lived at Barbadoes  in  1739,  supposes it never appeared in that
 island till about the  year 1721, and that it was then brought from
 Martinique in the Lynn,  man-of-war.  He says the second ap-
 pearance of it there  was in 1733, and that it then came also from
 Martinique.   He  undertakes  to show, that it is  a disease  of
 Asiatic extract ; and says  that  a Provencale fleet arrived at Port
 St. Pierre, in Martinique, from  Marseilles, on board which were
 several bales of Levant goods which were taken in at Marseilles
 from a  ship  just arrived from  St. Jean  D'Acre (probably  the
 Ptolemais  of  the  ancients).   Upon opening these bales of goods
 at  Port St.  Pierre,  this  distemper immediately shewed  itself;
 many of the  people were instantly seized,  some died  almost sud-
 denly, others in a few days, and some  lingered  longer ; and the
 contagion, still  spreading, made great havoc at the beginning.
 He says he had this  account from Mr. Nelson, an English surgeon,
 who was seized with the disease at  Martinique,  and died  of it a
 few days after his  arrival at Barbadoes.  He says it is very prob-
 able  that  the same  fever, or  one  of  very near resemblance and
 affinity,  may  first  have  been  carried   among the American
 Spaniards  (among whom it is now endemic)  in somewhat  a like
 manner ; and that possibly some peculiar qualities  in the air and
 climate  might have fostered and maintained it there ever since."
   Dr. Mosely at  once concludes the  whole of this account to be
fabulous, but  whether fabricated by Dr. Warren or the surgeon,
 he does not  say.   He  then  appeals  to Dr. Towne, who  wrote
 before Warren,  in 1776, but takes no notice of this chimerical
 origin of the yellow  fever, but considers it as an endemical disease
 in  the  West  Indies   Hillary's  opinion  already given is also
 quoted.
   " The next evidence is that  of Mr.  Hughes, who, though not a
 medical man, has  written on the first appearance  of the yellow
 fever in Barbadoes  in the following  terms :   Dr. Gamble  re-
 members that it was very fatal  here in the year 1691, and that it
 was called  the new  distemper, and  afterwards Kendal's fever,  the
 pestilential  fever, and the bilious fever.  The same symptoms did
 not always appear in all patients, nor alike in every year when it
 visited  us.  It  is  most commonly rife  and fatal in May, June,
 July and August, and  then mostly  among strangers ; though a
 great many of the  inhabitants, in the year 1696, died of it; and a
 great many at different  periods since." 
52
The epidemic  at  savannah.
   " As  to  the  first  appearance of the disease in the West India
 islands we have  no accounts which have  been  deemed  suf-
 ficiently authentic, though indeed it  must be confessed that the
 doubts seem to be derived as much from an attachment to theory
 as to the investigation of  truth.   " The endemical causus, or yellow
fever (says Dr. Mosely) which is the terror of Europeans newly
 arrived in  the West Indies, is called by the French la maladie de
 Siam.   Monsieur Pouppe  Desportes, who practiced  physic at St.
 Dominique from 1732 to 1748, and who had more experience, and
 has written from better information  on  the diseases  of  that
 colony, than any of his countrymen, says that this  fever was so
 called from its being first  taken notice of in the island of  Mar-
 tinique at a time when some vessels were there from Siam.  This
 account, though probably  true enough as to the time of its being
 first observed  in  the French  colonies,  is extremely incorrect in
 other respects ; for M. Desportes has not only admitted a suppo-
 sition  that the disease   originated  among these  East  Indian
 mariners, but calls it pestilential, and says that the Europeans are
 almost the only victims to it. " 
       HISTORY



           OF THE





DISCOVERY AND TRUE NATURE




            or




  PATHOGENIC BACTERIA,







THE GERM THEORY OF DISEASE. 
 
         TWELFTH  REPORT
                       ---OF THE---

MED1C/IL  OFFICER OF HEf^  MAJESTY'S PRIVY COUNCIL
              FOR 1869.—Page 243
INTRODUCTORY REPORT BY DR. BOURD N  SANDERSON ON THE INTIMATE

                  PATHOLOGY OF CONTAGIUM.
  There are two obvious objections which stand in the way of
the acceptance of any chemical explanation of  the phenomena of
contagium.   The first is that the multiplication of contagium is a
process which cannot be compared to any which is brought about
by  chemical  agencies  independently of  organic  development.
The second is, that all  contagia possess the power of retaining
their latent virulence for  long periods (often resisting the most
unfavorable  chemical and physical conditions)  and only  show
themselves to be  what they are when  they are  brought into con-
tact with living organisms.  Outside of  the body the contagious
material withstands  all those  changes  to which, on chemical
grounds, we should expect  it to  be  liable while in the body it
manifests a  degree of activity, and gives rise to an amount of
molecular disturbance which is quite as unaccountable.
  Neither of these  difficulties stand  in  the way, if we suppose
that the contagious process is connected with the unfolding of
organic forms.       ****** 
 
     SEVENTEENTH  REPORT
                          --OF--
THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF THE PRIVY  COUNCIL  TO HEF[
                 MAJESTY'S  GOVERNMENT.
                       1874.-P. 5.
   Ten years ago we had not even a beginning of any true insight
into the respective contagia which excite diseases.   *   *   *   *
   I think the fact noteworthy that the first of such studies were
instituted, and the first steps of discovery made with reference to
a  contagious fever of horned cattle.  I refer to  the  researches
which were made  under Her Majesty's  Government  in  1865, in
aid of the Cattle  Plague Commission, when Dr.  Lionel Beale,
working at the microscopy of the disease, drew attention to the
swarms of extremely minute particles which  he found invariably
present in the texture and juices of the animals, and which  he
believed to be  the  contagium of  the  disease ;   and  when Dr.
Bourdon Sanderson, working at the matter from a different point
of view, succeeded in showing, experimentally, that the true con-
tagium admits of being physically  distinguished in the animal
juices which contain it, and of being so separated from them as
to leave them without infective  power.   In  the next succeeding
years the writings of Dr. Hallier, Professor of Botany  in Jena,
brought under animated  discussion, as  a branch of  micro-phy-
tology the nature and mode of origin of contagium particles in a
great variety of diseases, human and brute ; new experimental
knowledge of  several contagia was  set forth in  the writings of
Professor  Chauveau, of the Veterinary Schools of Lyons  ; and in
1870 I had the honor of presenting Dr. Sanderson's first report
of researches made in the matter under your Lordship's direction.
  At that  time these general conclusions already seemed justified;
first, that the characteristic shaped elements which the microscope
had shown abounding in various infective products, are self-multi-
plying organic forms, not congeneric with the animal body in which 
58
THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.
they are found, but apparently of the lowest vegstable kind ;  and,
secondly, that such living organisms are probably the essence, or
an inseparable  part of the essence,  of all contagia  of disease.
The  study of morbid contagia was thus  brought into  seeming
affinity with that which had for some  years before been made by
Professor Schroder and  M. Pasteur, in the ordinary processes of
fermentation and putrefaction; and then began to become faintly
visible to us a vast destructive laboratory  of nature, wherein the
diseases, which are most fatal to animal life and the changes to
which dead  organic matter is  passively liable, appear bound
together by what must at least be called a very close analogy of
causation.  This view of the matter has since then become greatly
more distinct in consequence  of  investigations  made under  your
Lordships by Dr. Sanderson, practically, in 1871 and 1872, with
reference to the common  septic  contagia or ferment, for in that
ferment, particulate  as above  described, there  seems now to be
identified a  force which,  acting disintegratively upon organic
matter alike, whether dead or living, can on the one hand initiate
putrefaction  of  what is dead, and on the other  hand initiate
febrile and inflammatory processes in what is living.
  Research of Dr. Bourdon Sanderson :
  Report of the medical officer of the Privy Council, page 30.
  There are four contagious diseases, in respect of which  the
presence in the contagious liquids of forms of vegetation differing
from those met with either after death in the normal  tissues or
liquids of the body,  or  during life in the products of primary or
secondary inflammation, has been established.   These are small-
pox, sheep-pox, splenic fever  and relapsing fever.
  The first  statement as to the  existence of  organisms in the
lymph of cow-pox and small-pox were made  by Dr.  Keber, of
Dantzic, 1868.

  In my first paper  on pathology of contagion, published in 1870,
I gave an account, accompanied by a wood cut, of certain bodies,
to which I assigned  the name of microzyms, the presence of which
I found it was usually possible to demonstrate in vaccine liquid.
  Note.—In the twelfth report of the  medical  officer of Her
Majesty's Privy Council, 1870, page —, Dr. Bourdon Sanderson's
experiments  upon the physical properties  of vaccine virus, demon-
strated that the contagious particles of the vaccine lymph settled
to the bottom when  put into water, and separated into  two  parts, 
HISTORY OF PATHOGENIC BACTERIA.
59
one of which could not reproduce the  pustule, whilst the other
did do so.  On the contrary, the same lymph shaken up sharply
in water was so  diluted  as to  produce pustules  in  two out of
twenty trials, whilst the lymph which had settle to the bottom, in
water, produced pustules in sixteen out of twenty-two trials."
  Note.—1870, page 233.—"With this  view I diffused liquids
known to be  infecting, derived from  plague-stricken  animals, by
the ordinary method, i. e.: through parchment paper, and found
that while the diffusate  was wholly innocuous, the  liquid that
remained behind retained its activity.
  1871, page 62.—*  *   *  "So that we may conclude that the
contamination of water by apparently dry surfaces happens only
in those cases in which desiccation is incomplete.  It thus appears
that fully formed bacteria are deprived  of their power of farther
development by thorough desiccation."   *   *  *
  Page 31.—Some months before tho  appearance of the paper
from  which  the  above description is quoted, Dr. C. Weigert, of
Breslau, published a short communication, founded on the micro-
scopical examination of  the skin in persons who had died of small-
pox, in which he stated that he  had  found  the lymphatic vessels
of the cutis plugged with a  granular mass, which exhibited  all
the characters of the micrococci."  *  *  *
   Page 33.—" These  communications led  to  Dr. Klein's being
requested to  undertake the investigation, of which the results are
embodied in his paper on the  pathology of sheep-pox.  It will
probably be admitted by most readers  that  even if the problem
has not been completely solved, the investigation has  yielded
results of the highest pathological value.  *  *  *
   (Page 33, idem). "The first infective disease, in respect of which
it could be asserted with anything like probability, that a specific
organism was  present,  either in the blood or the tissues, was
splenic fever.   The peculiar staff, or rod-shaped bodies which are
always contained in the  liquor  sanguinis in this disease, was dis-
covered in 1855, or perhaps earlier.  *   *   *
   (Page 35, idem).  The discovery  that, in the blood of animals
affected with splenic fever, rod-like bodies are found in the liquor
sanguinis, was  first,  I  believe,  made by Pollander, who  in the
year  1855,  described  them  as fine, apparently  solid, straight,
unbrancbed objects, ^  to ^  of a  line in length and  ^Vo of
a line in width.   He noted  they possessed no motion, differing
in that respect from  ordinary bacteria.  (Note.—The spirilla of 
60
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
splenic  fever will be given  below from  Cohn).  A year or two
after  Brauell published the first of his very extensive series of
researches  on the  contagium  of splenic  fever, in which he not
only confirmed Pollander's  discovery, but  by  experiments in
which he communicated the  disease to  animals under  a  great
variety of conditions,, acquired for pathologists the greater part
of the accurate knowledge they now possess on the subject. * * *
   (Page 36, idem).   "The following are the most important facts
relating to the contagion of splenic fever, which have been ascer-
tained either as the result of  clinical or experimental inquiry :
   1st. "The disease may be communicated by any means which
involves the transference of a portion of the blood of  a  diseased
animal,  to the living tissue of an animal previously healthy.  It
is not known that it  can be propagated in any other way, for
animals kept in the closest proximity to diseased ones,  and placed
under the most favorable conditions for infection through the air,
are not  infected.
   2nd.  "Although the blood of animals affected with splenic fever
always  contain  the staff-shaped bodies,  if it  be examined at a
sufficiently advanced period, the  disease  can  be communicated
by the  inoculation of blood in which these bodies are either not
present, or at all  events not in such numbers as to admit  of their
being made out microscopically.  *  *  *
   (Page 37).  "There are facts relating to splenic fever which
show on  the  one hand that the contagious property, as  it exists
in the circulating blood, is very transient, aud on the other, that
there must be a form or state of the contagium in which it is
remarkably persistent.  *  *   *
   (Page 39.)  "The common ubiquitous bacteria, those which are
concerned  in  putrefaction changes  are  known to  be  in  their
ordinary active state, easily destroyed.  That they are unable to
survive  complete desicccation or a temperature higher  than 80
deg. C.   On  the  other hand, it is equally well  ascertained that
masses  containing  bacteria are not  deprived  of the power of
originating new  generations of these organisms by heat, unless
they are either subjected  to  a temperature  considerably higher
than that of ebullition, or boiled for a very long period.   The
reason of the apparent discrepancy is to be found in the fact that
the bacteria have  two modes of existence, the one characterized
by permanence and resistance, the other by rapid development
and short duration ; thus in all bacteria  masses,  thei'e exists, in 
HISTORY OF PATHOGENIC  BACTERIA.
61
addition to the ordinary forms  of  readily killed  bacteria,  other
living particles of more stable structure.
  "The properties of such bodies to which Professor Cohn assigns
the name  of  lasting  spores (Durosporen)  are  only  just  now
beginning to  occupy  the  attention of  mycologists.   *   *   *
(Page 33,  idem.)  The most striking  feature  of  the disease
(splenic fever  in  cattle) is its externally rapid  progress.  In the
most rapid cases, those to which all  writers refer as " apoplectic,"
the disease runs its course  in a few  hours at most.  In  the ordi-
nary cases as  they  occur among  cattle, it  lasts a day or two.
*       ********
  "Professor Buhl, at Munich, in 1868, discovered a rapidly  fatal
disease affecting the human subject which presents the characteris-
tic of splenic fever, and turns out on investigation to be identical
with it.  The first case occurred in  a man aged thirty-two years.
Shortly after,  two other cases were recorded by Professor Wal-
deger, now of Strasbourg, and  all  doubts of  the matter  was
removed by Dr. Munch,  of  Moscow, who,  at the Workman's
Hospital, discovered  that  in all men  who  died from infection
from diseased  animals, there existed all the characteristic internal
changes and lesions of  splenic fever.
  Relapsing fever, page 41.) "In the epidemic of  relapsing fever,
which prevailed  in  Berlin from November, 1867, to  May, 1868,
Dr. Obermeier, whose attention had been called to the question of
the relation between specific organic forms and  contagium, by the
publications of Professor  Hallier,  investigated  the blood micro-
scopically in eighty-two cases.  In general, the results were nega-
tive.  In some cases, however, he noted appearances, of  which he
did not fail at the time to  understand the full significance."
  When relapsing  fever again  appeared in  Berlin in  1872, the
inquiry was resumed.   In  the very first case  which was investiga-
ted, the bodies to be referred to in the following paragraphs as
" spirilla," were discovered.  On the 26th of March Dr. Obermeier
published a second series of  observations.   Twenty new cases
were investigated in veins  of which the blood had been examined
daily.   The result of these examinations showed that the presence
of the  organisms in  the blood was associated with the morbid
processes so closely that as soon as the pyrexia disappeared they
disappear with it, reappearing when  the patient was again found
in the relapse.
  Soon after the death of Dr. Obermeier, in August, 1873, a third 
62
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH1.
series of  observations were  communicated by  Dr. Engel to the
Berlin Medical Weekly Journal.
  During the same year  the  epidemic prevalence of  relapsing
fever in Breslau afforded additional opportunities for investigating
the subject.
  The morphrological and botanical  characters of the organisms
were subsequently determined by Professor Ferdinand Cohn.
  Dr. Litten gave the history of the disease.  It was  infectious
eminently from  person to  person in limited  foci.   Thus, in a
hamlet called Wilhelmsruhe, fourteen persons, belonging to four
families,  all of which  inhabited  the  same room,  were  attacked.
Breslan was peculiarly exposed to overcrowding in that year.  All
the other inhabitants of the  hamlet, although some of them occu-
pied rooms in the same  building, remained free from the disease.
Twenty-one persons were  attacked in the hospital.  Poverty and
want did not give rise to the disease.
  Dr. Litten further gives the  following summary of his observa-
tions:
  "The spirilla of Obermeier are found only in the blood of  per-
sons affected with the disease, and present themselves  invariably
during the  paroxisms.  The following is the course of relapsing
fever: Six to seven days,  fever; eight days, remission; five days,
second fever; nine days after, rarely  fever returns."
  Obermeier found in  the blood of  the  sick very delicate, long,
very rapidly moving spiral threads, seen  only in the stage of fever
paroxysm, not in the remission, nor in the  period shortly before
or after  the crisis.  Cohn saw them himself at  Breslau, in " All
Saints"  Hospital.  These threads are found  exclusively  in the
blood, being never found in  the  secretions nor organs.  They are
found twenty-four hours, and leave two or three days after increase
of temperature.   On  account of their delicacy of  structure and
rapid  motion,  they are  easily  overlooked   The  observer  first
detects them by  the  motion they give to the blood corpuscles.
TLese threads or  spirilla  are  never found  in  the  dead body.
Their number is various.  They probably  diminish toward the
end of the paroxysm, and completely disappear  before the crisis.
  The number of  spirilla  varies considerably.   They  can  be best
kept alive out of  the body in serum.   As soon as the  temperature
of 60 deg. C. was passed,  the  movements became  languid;  no
effect to  this degree.  By  the time 65 deg. was reached, they had
entirely ceased.   No effect was observed on cooling the prepara- 
                HISTORY OE PATHOGENIC BACTERIA.              ()3

tion to  the  temperature of freezing, but its continuance caused
the  movements to cease.  Sometimes they are  found in  small
numbers, and in others very abundant in  the field of the micro-
scope.   According to Engel their number must be reckoned  by
millions.  This fever was seen at Breslau in 1868.  It came on in
temporary  and  local  epidemics, which probably  were imported.
As  a rule, it attacked all the occupants  of  a room, one  after
another, and obviously was spread by personal infection.

FORMS  AND  CLASSIFICATION  OF BACTERIAS—1870,
                          Page  241.

  The organic forms which are met with in contagious fluids are,
according to Hallier, analogous.  They are included by him under
the general term hafe, scum or dregs.  By Hallier it is understood
to mean a form of fungus, which consists of minute single  cells,
which  reproduce themselves with extraordinary rapidity, exist in
all substances undergoing putrefaction  or  fermentation, and grow
and multiply at the expense  of these substances.  As  they  never
lose their unicellular character they cannot be said either to have
spores or mycelium, each individual cell being alike an organ  of
growth and an organ of reproduction.   Some of these organisms
are already well known, especially those which belong to the true
fermentations,  as e. g.:   The arborescent ferment plant,  which
exists in most hormiscium, consisting of branching series of glo-
bules joined end to end; or the necklace-like ferment of common
yeast (torula); or the still more remarkable sarcina ventriculi, in
which the globules are set together in squares.   These organisms
may be divided into two  groups; one  comprising  the ferment
plants already mentioned,  which have no direct relation to  our
present inquiry; the other contains those forms which are associ-
ated with  the commencement of decomposition  of nitrogenous
compounds,  of  which  putrefaction is the  continuation.   The
spheroidal  particles which are observed under these conditions
are  much  smaller than  those which occur in  fermenting liquid}
and  do not,  in general, exceed ^T of an inch in diameter.  They
are known to be living organisms, and thereby distinguished from
mere particles of protoplasm by the observed fact that they tend,
under conditions which will hereafter be fully discussed, to elon-
gate into rod-like bodies,  endowed  with a  peculiar  progressive
and  oscillatory  movement.   So  long  as they are still spheroids 
64
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
they are called by  Hallier  micrococci, by  others microspores.
After they have become staff-shaped they are usually called bac-
teria or bacteridia.
  (Page 245, idem, 1868.)   "Du Barry's description of these living
organisms: They consist of cells, each of  which is roundish, or of
the form of  a short cylinder, and multiply by continuous division
into two.  They  either occur isolated or are united into rows or
small masses, which grow equally at  all points by cell division.
They include, adds  Du Barry, forms of extreme  minuteness, as
yet insufficiently known as regards their  organization,  which  are
represented  by  the generic names vibrio, bacterium, zoogloa,
(Cohn), nozema. (Nagele), sarcina, &c, &c.   1868.
  (1871, report, idem.) "When common microzyms grow on moist
surfaces they, with their intervening jelly, form viscous masses of
sufficient size to be cognizable by the unaided senses,  these con-
sisting of a  material similar to scum which forms  on the surface
of liquids.
  (Page 50,  idem.)  'As  regards their  action on  liquids,  the
most important  facts are  these:  1st. That their growth is at-
tended  with absorption of  oxygen and  discharge of carbonic
acid; 2d. That they are remarkably independent of  the chemical
constitution of the medium, provided they are supplied with oxy-
gen;  and  3d. That they take nitrogen from almost any  source
which contains it, and  use it for the building up of their own pro-
toplasm.
              (Nature—Page 328—August 16, 1877.)
   "In conclusion, Dr.  Roberts  pointed to the fact that  there exists
a  remarkable morphological identity between the organism of
certain infective diseases and other quite harmless saprophytes.
   "Thus bacillus anthracis of splenic fever only differs from bacillus
subtilis in the fact that the rods are motionless, while the spirilla
of relapsing fever are identical in form and botanical characters with
spirochete plicatilis of Ehrenberg.   May not these coincidences,
he  suggests,  point to a natural  explanation of the origin of con-
tagia ?   May not the harmful  organisms be merely variations, or
sports  from  the  harmless saprophytes resembliug  them, just as
the bitter almond is a sport from  the sweet, and the nectarine
from the peach ?  May not typhoid fever, for example, be explained
as due to a variation from some common saprophyte of our stag-
nant pools or sewers, which, under certain  conditions  within the
human body, acquires a parasitic hold ? 
HISTORY OF PATHOGENIC BACTERIA.
65
(Journal of the Royal Jlicroscopical Society, Page 87—Bacteria as
           Parasites in Splenic Disease—May, 1878.)
  M. H. Toussaint has communicated fresh remarks on this sub-
ject to the French Academy, his object being to show that those
who have attributed the disease to a virus, and not to the bacteria,
are in  error.   Referring to a  previous paper, he  states that a
rabbit, dying after inoculation  with blood containing the bacteria,
dies in consequence  of the  obliteration  of the  capillaries of
essential organs, such as lungs and brain.   Most  of the  flexuous
capillaries of the economy are filled with bacteria at the moment
oi death.  This effect is most readily observed in the choroid and
retina  of albin rabbits.  He claims to have demonstrated  that
when fresh bacteria  blood is received  into tubes and preserved
from contact with air and from putrefaction, it loses its contagious
properties in six or eight days, or sooner, if kept at  a temperature
of 38 deg. to  40  deg.,  C.   A virus does  not behave in  this  way.
Such  a  method would be  adopted to preserve it.  Filtration of
bacteria blood, fresh and defibrinized,  through a filter composed
cf eight sheets of paper,  suffices to deprive it of its contagious
element.   This filter allows the granulations, and even some white
corpuscles, to pass, but it retains all the bacteria.   Such  a filtra-
tion allows a considerable  quantity of virus elements to pass, but
completely deprives bacteria blood of its contagious properties.
  The  time  elapsing  between  bacterium  inoculation  and the
death  of an animal, may  be regulated by the quantity  injected,
though the incubation period  may be suppressed.
*       *       *       *       **      *      *      *
  He describes many experiments,  all  confirming the belief that
death is  produced by the multiplication of the bacteria organ-
isms  and their  obstructing  the  capillaries.   In one animal
was injected 1| cubic contents of the  infected blood, containing
fifteen  hundred millions of bacteria, in another  seventy-five mil-
lions, and in a third fifteen hundred, the blood being diluted with
water.  The first  died in seven hours, the second died in twelve or
thirteen hours, and the third died in thirty-six hours.

Nature—Page  327.—Dr. William Roberts, F. R.  S., on  Subject of
  Spontaneous Generation and the Doctrine  of Contagium Vivum—
  August 16th, 1877.
  After alluding  to  the  analogy,  which  may possibly  be reah
between contagious fever and tne action, say of yeast in fermen-
     5 
66
THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.
  tation, he  proceeded to consider two propositions.   The  first
  proposition is :  That organic matter  has no inherent  power of
  generating bacteria, and no inherent power of passing into de-
  composition.  To substantiate  this, he exhibited specimens of
  decomposable organic fluids, which, having been sterilized, had
  remained in his  possession, undecomposed, for  many  months, or
  even years.  Sterilization had been effeccted  in  three ways :
    1st.  By prolonged boiling, the exclusion of germs being after-
  ward secured by plugs of cotton wool.   2d. By  filtration through
  unglazed earthenware, previously heated  to  redness, into flasks,
  sterilized by the heat of  boiling water.  3d.  By transferring the
  organic decomposable fluid, such as blood, urine, pus, etc., directly
  from the interior of the body to well sterilized flasks, and subse-
  quently defending them from germs by plugs of cotton wool.
    The second proposition is : That bacteria are  the actual agents
  of decomposition.   This  Dr. Roberts considers  to be proved by
  the following considerations :
    a. That which originates decomposition comes  from the air, since
 removal of the plugs in any of the above cases is infallibly followed
 by decomposition.
   b. That which  originates decomposition consists of solid particles
 floating in the air,  since filtration of the  air,  as  above, is  able to
 prevent decomposition, and air, which is optically pure, (Tyndall)
 has no  fermentating power.
   c. That which  originates decomposition  has not the nature  of a
 soluble ferment,  since decomposable fluids, in which putrefaction
 has already set in,  yield filtrates through  earthenware, which do
 not decompose, while pepsin, diastase, etc., readily pass through
 the same medium.
   But it is,  nevertheless,  true, that certain liquids, as  neutralized
 living infusions, and milk, often produce bacteria, even after they
 have been  boiled for two or three hours,  and when there is no
 possibility of subsequent  infection ; and it is equally true that
 bacteria are  invariably killed by exposure to a temperature of
 140 deg. F, or  more.  Are  not  these  facts  strong evidence of
 abrogenesis ?  No;  and for the following reasons :
   1st. Although bacteria invariably die at the above named tem-
terpature, their spores may not;  aud this is more than probable,
since Dollinger and Drysdale have demonstrated that while certain
monads are  destroyed  by heating to  140 deg.  F., their spores
survive  a heat of  300 deg. F. 
History of pathogenic  bacteria.
67
  2d  Cohn has examined  the organisms which  arise under the
conditions named,  viz.:  in boiled living  infusions, and  he has
demonstrated that they are not  a new creation, as might have
been expected, but invariably the well known  bacterium, bacillus
subtilis.  Is it possible to believe, in the face of the whole theory
of evolution, that  abrogenesis is able, at one  stroke, and within
seventy hours, to produce such a specialized organism as this ? 
JL  CLASSIF1CATI0H  OF  PyVTHOGE^lC  BACTERIA

                         BY
           DR. FERDINAND COHN,
      Beitrage zur Biologie der Pflanzen—Part 2, 1872, p. 160.
                            GENERA.
  1st.  Globular bacteria, (sphero-bacteria.)
  2d. Rod bacteria, (micro-bacteria.)
  3d. Thread bacteria,  (desmo-bacteria.)
  4th.  Spiro bacteria.
                            SPECIES.
           [ 1st.  Micrococcus vaccinia; pock-bacteria.
           |  2d.  Micrococcus diphtherica; of diphtheria.
1st  Genus. J,  3d.  Micrococcus septicus; pyemia septic^ria.
           |  4th. Micrococcus bombycis;  mycosis intestinitis  of
           [     silk worms.
                            SPECIES.
„ ,  „       j 1st. Bacterium termo; of ordinary putrefaction.
      nu '   j 2d. Bacterium tincola; of  stagnant water.
                            SPECIES.
Q,  n       j 1st. Threads straight; bacillus.
dd  Lrenus.   j M  Threads undulatory; vibrios.
p>  ...    j a.  Bacillus subtilis; of butyric acid fermentation.
         \b. Bacillus anthracis; of splenic fever.
tt-u •  ( a- Vibrio rugula; diarrhoea and on  mucus of teeth.
Vibrio. { ,  T7-, .    °   '
       ( 6. Vibrio serpens.
                            SPECIES.
            f i <- q •.  v.  f  1 Flexible,  moving rapidly,  close
            i xst. opirocnsete. <         -*  ..     -,  *
.,,  p      j                 (   wound thread ot a screw.
            i nj  o • -n        Non-flexible,  motionless,  short,
             2d.  Spirillum.   -             ' -, ,,    -,   e
            {       *         (   open  wound thread ot a screw.

             a. Spirochete plicatilis, 1872.  \   ,    °      ,? ,,
                 r        r               (   ter,mucus ot teeth.
                                           ( F e b r i s  recurren s
Spirochete. -{                                  Breslau. Oberme-
               SpirocheteObermeiri, 1873.  ■{   ier   commenced
                                           j   his  observations
                                           [   in 1868.
            f a. Spirillum  tenue.
ej • -ii      j b. Spirillum undula.
  P  l       1    o  • -n      i l      (In water containing decay-
             a Spirillum volutans.  j  ing fresh water |nails/ 
 
P.  V.
Fig.  n.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 4.
Fig.

 
 
T. VI.

  I   /
K \ » » */, I

 / .  s x



* ^ t c
#1 \* *T
**&#'
J
j> A 
INDEX TO PLATES V. AND VI.
  Micrococcus uree—Plate VI, fig. 1.
  Micrococcus Torulce, rosary chains—Plate VI, fig. 2.
  Micrococcus glutinis { Saccharomyces ) _piate yI fi   3
                      1 Cryptococcus  )
  Micrococcus bombycis—Plate V, fig.  7.
  Micrococcus fulvus—Plate V, fig. 4.  (Forming red slime drops
on horse dung.)
  Bacterium termo—Plate VI, fig. 4.
  Bacterium lineola zooglif* vm—Plate VI, fig. 5.
  Bacillus subtilis, thread  bacteria found rapidly moving in infu-
sions  of  rennet and with spores at one or both ends—Plate V,
fig. 9.
  Bacillus subtilis found in decoction of peas undergoing butyric
fermentation; spores in rows—Plate V,  fig. 10.
  Bacillus subtilis spares imbedded in micrococcus  found in  sed-
iment from rennet infusion—Plate V, fig. 5.
  Bacillus anthracis—Plate V, fig. 2.  (From the blood of an ox,
after death from  splenic  fever, anthrax.)
  Vibrio  serpens—Plate VI, fig. 6.
  Spirochete plicatilis—Plate VI, fig. 1.
  Spirochete Obermeiri—Plate V, fig. 3.   (Spiral threads rapidly
moving among blood  corpuscles of persons ill with relapsing
fever.)
  Spirillum tenue—Plate VI, fig.  7.
  Spirillum undula—Plate VI, fig. 8.
  Cladothryx dichtoma, forked dichotoma threads forming white
slimy masses on the surface  of  putrefying liquids-a.  magnified
100 diameters; b. magnified 600 diameters-Plate V, fig. 6.
  Aspergillus glaucus,  showing sporiferous stem  with spores; my-
celium and sporangium, showing also ascus with zoospores, zoos-
pore and linear arrangement of the true spores-Plate V, fig.  1.
  Ophidomonas sanguinea,   monad  found  m putrefying water,
magnified 600—Plate  V,  fig. 11. 
 
     RESEARCHES

           UPON

BACTERIA,
            BY

    FERDINAND COHN.
    FROM THE GERMAN:
BIOLOGIE DER PFLANZEN.
      BRESLAU, 1872.
       TRANSLATED BY
JAMES J. WARING, M. D., AND ERNST DETMOLD
SAVANNAH, GA. :
  1879. 
 
RESEARCHES  UPON  BACTERIA.
   When, twenty years ago, I made public my first investigations
 of bacteria [see history of the development of microscopic alge
 and fungi,] there arose certain very important questions upon the
 morphology and development  of  these  smallest of all  organic
 things, which of late years have brought  the development of  bac-
 teria into close connection with the  most important problems of
 Universal Natural Science.
   There are two men above all others whose  labors, although of
 different value, have alike excited  the interest of a large  number
 in bacteria.
   Pasteur described bacteria incidentally.  The inferior accuracy
 of his microscopical observations, however, injured his work so
 far as  they referred to these organisms, though not impairing the
 value  of  his investigations  of the  ferments;  nevertheless, all
 later investigations must  be built upon his as a foundation.   On
 the  other hand, Hallier deserves  the credit of having first called
 attention  to the relation of   these  bacteria  to  contagia  and
 ferments.   He made this the  subject, for  many years,  of close
 microscopical study and investigation, and we deeply regret  that
 the later investigators, among  them those in  England and Ger-
 many,  excited by him to these studies, were unable to avail them-
 selves  of his researches because his method was so poor.
  For a number of years I have labored carefully with my friend
 Dr.  Schroder, renewing our inquiries into bacteria with, in  the
 meantime, more perfected opitical means of help, and have also.
 after Dr. Schroder left the Botanical Institute, in the summer of
 1870, continued  the work alone.   I have thus  endeavored to
 arrive  at some independent conclusions as to the biological rela-
 tions of bacteria and  the  classification  of  their species.  I
 have also tried to determine, by experiment, their ferment power.
 I communicated some of the results of my labors to  the Schles-
 siche Society,  on February 10, 1871 ; to the Medical Section, on
 August 4 ; also  to the  Natural History Section on February 10,
 1872 ;  also  to the  Journal of Botany, of M.  DuBarry, dated
December  22, 1871 ; Virchow's  Archives of  Pathological Anat-
omy, vol. 55, March, 1872. 
74
THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.
  Although my  researches have as yet led me to no satisfactory
conclusions, still I deem it worth  while  to  give here  a detailed
statement of my labors.
  To  what organisms do bacteria belong ?  What genera, what
species are there?  I  have directed  my first efforts  to answer
these  questions.  Of  late  years, any  reader will  observe a great
chaos in the nomenclature of bacteria.  Each investigator has
given his own names to forms, without regard to the names given
by his predecessors.
  The difficulties of nomenclature  and classification is  inconceiv-
ably great.  Ehrenberg and Dujardin have alone taken the trou-
ble  to put into clear order the whole  line of bacteria  and  divide
them into genera  and species.  Their labors must therefore be
considered the starting point; though their system of classifica-
tion may be criticised from their magnifying powers being defec-
tive.  Nevertheless it is a matter  of great surprise and of  great
merit that Ehrenberg showed us structures which we find it diffi-
cult to make out at this day.
  Though  possessing the strongest  magnifying powers, we are
compelled to acknowledge that most  of  the bacteria are beyond
the  powers of our microscopes, for we are unable to observe the
organization of  their contents  and  their propagation  satisfac-
torily.  The existence of the smallest forms would escape us but
for  the enormous masses in which they generally appear.
  Their classification is difficult because of their slight differences
of form.   Whilst in other organisms classification is based upon
differences of propagation, bacteria  cannot be so classified, be-
cause up  to the present  time their  method  of  propagation has
not been determined.  Their external forms, as far as we can see,
exhibit no varieties in their structure—no  marked peculiarities
of form  and contents. It  is their  size and method of group-
ing, and  their interlacement into  colonies which show varieties.
It is,  however, impossible  to determine  how  far they belong to
originally different kinds; how far they are  moulded  by external
influences, and  how far they belong  to different varieties of one
kind, or how far they are  only the  same  beings in various stages
of development.
  Although Lewenhoek recognized bacteria in the seventeenth
century, and O. F. Miiller saw and described the most important
forms, yet the scientific method of  classification commences with
Ehrenberg.  He gave us  in 1830  the family of vibrios, which he 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
75
rank3 between  the Volvoce and Clausterias.  To these he added
the forms of thread-like  structure, which were endowed with self-
movement and segmentation.  The segmental thread forms are
based upon self-partition, in which  both halves remain connected
together, as Bury de St. Vincent showed in 1838.   Ehrenberg, in
his work on Infusoria, in  1838, gave four genera, which he classes
in the following way:
                  EHRENBERG's CLASSIFICATION.
   1. Threads—straight, motionless—Bacteria.
   2. Threads—straight, with serpentine motion—Vibrios.
   3. Threads—spiral, with motion—Spirochete.
   4. Threads—spiral, motionless—Spirilla.
   Of Bacteria he gave 3 species.
   Of Vibrios he gave 9 species.
   Of Spirochceta he gave 1 specie.
   Of Spirilla he gave 3 species.
   Dujardin, in  his Natural History of 1841, has taken Ehrenberg's
genus vibrios as the first and  lowest  form of infusoria.  He also
adopted the same genera and  the  same method of classification.
   The bacteria, straight  and with  slow and little motion, he dis-
tinguishes from the vibrioes, which are straight, or sometimes bent
and move quickly, with serpentine  movement, and  from the spir-
illa, which are always screw-like, with threads turning upon  a
common axis.   The genus spirochete Dujardin does not  distin-
guish from the spirilla, which  he says are  not stiff and motionless,
and therefore only differ from spirochete  by the larger or smaller
screw threads,  or the number of the turns of the screw.
   Though the ^classification of bacteria, vibrioes and spirilla by
Ehrenberg is very clear, it is by no  means easy to determine them
practically. We do find stiff, staff-like forms which are, no doubt,
bacteria, and  we find motionless spirals, which we just as truly
call spirilla, and we find those  eel-like and lightning moving forms,
which Ehrenberg and  Dujardin called vibrioes.  The snail-like or
serpentine motion of these vibrioes, conveying the impression of
undulation, that is a partial flexion or stretching out of  a flexible
body, is really only an optical  illusion, caused by the quick revolv-
ing spirals of  an unchanging form of a more'or less^open'screw
turning on its own axis.   I am convinced that the wave and screw-
like motion of vibrios and spirilla are unchanging forms which
are not  capable of  a stretching and bending, and  therefore have 
76                THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.

no serpentine motion. Hence, there are no vibrioes which answer
to Ehrenberg's definition ; and, therefore,  this genus must  be
classified according to other properties.
  All those who  have studied bacteria in the last thirty  years
have either taken  Ehrenberg's and Dujardin's  classifications,  or
have  given  new,  and sometimes arbitrary, names  to  the  forms
they have observed.  This, especially, applies to Pasteur, who at
one time talks of animalcules,  fungi, infusoria, torulce, bacteria,
vibriones and monads without giving any method of telling them
apart, and at other times calls the same forms mocrozyms, mucors,
mucedines or  ferments.
  We are now ready to put the question, whether there are really
genera among bacteria the same as among the higher  organisms.
One who does not believe in  the  doctrine of metamorphoses,
which begets anything out of anything, will feel troubled to make
a natural classification of  these innumerable bodies of  every pos-
sible form.  It appears as if these various forms were one and the
same, being in different  states of development;  still  I am con-
vinced that bacteria have different  genera and species, just as
well as other low  plants and animals, and that the way of  telling
them apart, in many cases, is rendered impossible to our powers of
observation of to-day by their  extraordinary small size  and  by the
living together of different species.  T base this idea upon the
fact that the large bacteria are always to be found with the same
forms under every possible condition and in innumerable quantity,
without intermediate forms of development.  This is especially
true of spirilla, which are different in  their species  from the staff
bacteria, just  as  truly as  they  differ from  genuine alge or infu-
soria.
  Pasteur, who remarks that the nature of  an organized ferment
cannot be certainly determined by the microscopic form,  but only
by  the physiological functions, calls particular attention  to  the
extraordinary  similarity  of milk and  vinegar ferments,  and  the
anmonio-urine ferment to the jelly-like ferment of  wine. The
bacteria  which produce red, yellow, orange, blue and  other pig-
ments may hardly be told apart, and yet plant them and they will
always give the same pigments.  The bacteria which are found in
the different contagia are  the same in their form sometimes with
those found in the urine  or butyric acid ferment; sometimes with
those of the pigments.   Shall we  now call every kind  which may
be found in a certain medium, or have the same ferment power,  a 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.                77
special species, even though they cannot be  distinguished by the
microscope?  In this way we  would only distinguish them into
physiological species, which cannot be based upon their different
forms.  I believe that the time has not arrived to answer this
question.  We can find, probably, among the bacteria which  do
not  differ externally, but  which exhibit different chemical and
physiological effects,  b>th  varieties  and species, which, in the
beginning came  from the same spore, and which by constant nat-
ural or  artificial culture, uuder  the  same circumstances, and  on
the same soil, produce  the same results.   As all  bacteria mul-
tiply  in the  unsexual way, by  budding  or  partition, it is easily
understood that the peculiarities of their species may grow con-
stant or fixed.   Bees proved the  formation of species in the
various  ferments by artificial culture.  Just as summer corn can
not be used for winter seed, although both plants are of the same
origin, and by  constant culture may be converted  one  into the
other, so  the High ferment  cannot be used  as  the  ferment for
Bavarian beer, and, in fact, each wine and beer has its own kind
of ferment, yet it is probable that many of these alcoholic ferments
belong  to  one  and  the  same kind of  species,  though become
numerous culture varieties.  I think, also, that amongst the bac-
teria  which  act as  ferments in  different  chemical and patho-
logical processes, and consist only of a small number of independ-
ent species, there may be found a much larger quantity of natural
and culture  varieties, which, however, keep with great  tenacity
their  individual peculiarities, because they multiply only  in the
unsexual way.

THE ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF BACTERIA.
  The following description defines the structure and organiza-
tion of bacteria  :
  " Bacteria  are non-chlorophyl cells, globular, round, oval, cylin-
drical or twisted, which multiply by fissation  and which  vegetate
either singly  or  in groups."
  Bacteria cells contain  carbonic acid  and  a  usually colorless
protoplasm,  having a  higher refraction  than water, with  slimy,
oily granules.  This protoplasm is flexible or contractible, as I
have  proved in the oscillaria ; the coloring of bacteria is due to
pigments  in  the  protoplasm.   The refractive  powers  of  the
protoplasm  differs from   water, and hence  bacteria  iu large
quantity make  water  appear cloudy and milky.   The larger the 
78
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
quantity of the bacteria,  the more marked is  this  cloudiness.
Pasteur attributes this cloudiness to the movements of the bac-
teria.
  Generally, liquids  filled  with  bacteria, appear milky, with a
bluish tint  and  in  thicker layers  appear  orange colored  or
smoky by transmitted light.  As a  rule, the degree of dimness
in a clear liquid  is a measure  of  the quantity of the bacteria.
This  is  not  true of thicker liquids,  as  serum  and  lymph,
in which  they are invisible to the naked eye ; further, a small
quantity of  them do not cause any change of color in the liquid ;
therefore, we should not fail to make microscopic examinations in
doubtful cases.  With pigment  bacteria, the water  is colored.
  That bacteria have a cell membrane, is proven by their behavior
when exposed  to  chemical reagents.  They are not disturbed by
potash, ammonia, or acids.  This  is attributable not to the free
and  exposed condition  of the protoplasm, but to the cell  mem-
brane.  In  like manner this cell membrane resists putrefaction
for an extraordinary long time, and  agrees in this  also  with  the
cellulose membrane of  cellular plants.  With a  strong micros-
cope, one  can plainly distinguish  the cell membrane  of bacteria ;
for  with  a  certain focus, the  plasma appears somewhat black,
bounded by a wide, yellow glistening ring.   In some species, the
membrane is tender, easy to bend, with a flexible protoplasm, in
others it is stiff, retaining one form, and cannot be bent, so  much
so that Ehrenberg compared it to a  siliceous coating, although he
was  well  aware  of the  absence  of any silicic  acid.  The stiff
species undergo certain bendings when dead.
  The multiplication of bacteria  is by partition, and in this wise.
  The cells elongate to nearly  double  their length, the plasma
divides itself into two halves, and is permanently  separated  by
a cell wall.   Thus, two bodies are formed which adhere together
for  a longer or shorter period, or by the immediate decrease of
the mother ceil and splitting of the partition, part, one  from  the
other.   Immediately thereupon the  daughter cells begin another
division, and thus  their  numbertincreases to an almost incredible
extent,  I believe  that all the partitions which form bacteria cells,
with the resulting subdivisions, run in parallel lines, consequently
only one row of cell-chains can be found.
  A  formation of branches, as'fDujardin and Hoffman describe
and picture  for vibrios and bacteria,  is entirely#incorreet,£accord-
ing to my observations;  also a crosswise partitioning which wculd 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
79
 make the cells stand perpendicularly is never to be seen  among
 true  bacteria.  This proves  that the celebrated sarcina  ventri-
 cate which  have been found in the gastric fluids by Goods and
 by others,  must  be another kind of  schyzomycetes.  In smaller
 quantity this sarcina has been found in different organs, as (brain,
 lungs, etc.,) and outside the human organism, as for instance,
 on boiled potatoes,  in  dry  yellow heaps.  I myself saw a light
 yellow, dry speck of sarcina on a cooked white of an egg, on the
 25th  November,  1871,  and  even on the surface of a chemical
 solution (on the 2nd April, 1872,) in  which orange colored bac-
 teria  were growing, appearing as a yellow floating film.
   Pasteur found  traces of sarcina on the sides of a vessel con-
 taining yeast water exposed to the air  but a short time.  This
 shows that  the  spores of  sarcina often exist in the air, and propa-
 gate  themselves  under  different circumstances  and  methods.
 Lately  Losdorfer has discovered sarcina in the  blood of  both
 healthy and sick people, and I can substantiate this, as I saw, on
 the 19th of March, 1871, in a microscopic preparation of the blood
 of a healthy man  of four days' standing, traces of sarcina, which
 were  in  groups of four, growing among the  blood corpuscles.
 Although true bacteria may appear like  sarcina at the separating
 point of any four-fold layers of their threads, I cannot find sar-
 cina in this relation, and will not touch on this  subject again.
 As already mentioned, the divisions of a bacteria cell (the daughter
 cells) sometimes may separate entirely,  forming single, so-called5
 globular bacteria,  or they may remain bound together in longer or
 shorter threads, as thread bacteria.
  In the first case, class or group, we find the single bacteria, during
 their  division in pairs, in  the shape of a figure 8.  The number of
 the cells connected in a thread is, however, various, and depends
 partly on their specific nature, partly on their outside surroundings,
 consequently the lengths  of the threads  differ, sometimes appear-
 ing in  two, four  or eight divisions.  The  threads of  bacillus
 subtilis are sometimes very long, and  are  then described as a
 special kind, under the name of leptothrix.  It is not to be under-
 stood from this that all kinds of leptothrix (which are usually of
 a green color) are bacteria, or grow out of bacteria; but  on the
 contrary,  this is  not  proven of  that kind of leptothrix which
 contain phyco-chromate;  only  the  colorless fungus species of
leptothrix belong to the class of thread bacteria.  On such the
 divisions  are hard to  discern;  in other cases  the divisions are 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
80
marked by slight indentations, and as the threads  break very
easily, the irregular ends appear ziz-zag when  the  divisions are
torn apart.
  Most of the new discoverers are inclined to adopt the view that
all bacteria are alike in their  method of thread forming.  Yet I
am convinced to-day,  as  I  was twenty years ago, that this is not
the case, but that the  bacteria are divided into two groups, which
also, in their  further development, show difference.  For this rea-
son the distinction  of their generation must be  observed.  The
daughter cells of  the round rod-like bacteria separate themselves
according to  their partitioning; and, therefore, in a free position,
appear single or  in pairs, with now and then exceptional double-
paired cells.   But under certain circumstances the cell  generations
remain wrapt up in each  other so that their cell membranes swell
up to a  jelly-like, refracting, intercellular substance, and through
that bind  themselves into larger elastic jelly masses.   I have
already called attention to this jelly mass in my essay  on bacteria,
in the year 1853, as a form of  zooglea.  These, swimming on the
water, or spread  out  on a stand, formed irregularly round, clus-
tered or skimlike jelly masses, in which the bacteria cells were more
or less completely imbedded.   In this zooglea  jelly the  bacteria
continue to propagate by partition;  and when the increase is very
large, the young cells  are extraordinarily crowded one on the other,
while the intercellular substance  is very little developed.  In this
form they appear as small,  compactly filled jelly balls, of about ten
mikrometres, and sometimes less than that.  Later on,  the cells
soften and separate, and are imbedded in larger spaces.  One can
see with the  naked eye that these jelly masses are colorless, swim-
ming in flakes in the  water, settling on the surface of the sides or
bottom of a vessel.  If  the water  contains  iron  in  solution, the
latter will unite with  the jelly  as iron oxyhydrate, in  which case
the jelly will be stained red-brown.   Should there be pure sulphate
in such water, the rust-brown zooglea jelly will become blackened.
These are found in the dregs of  foul pump water, or  in ditches—
black zooglea. In  a  group of globular bacteria  the  form of the
zooglea is somewhat soft;  the more so  that they prove in the air
to be dregs  of interstitial substance in the vessels, or  prove to be
a covering for little infusoria.
   The bacteria cells which are imbedded in the jelly are not dead,
as  they in this  condition not only freely  multiply, but,  through 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
81
solution, are very easily freed from the jelly, and can  then float
upon the water.
   The second group of thread and spiral bacteria are never seen
in jelly masses, as I have already said in my first essay, but spring
up either freely strewn or  in swarms.   It is necessary to watch
the formiug of a swarm in all bacteria, both of  the rod and spiral
kind, when they gather in innumerable masses in the midst of a
fluid in search of richer food, or on the surface of the same, hun-
gering for  acids.   Already has Lewenhoek and O. F. Miiller, and,
la:er, Threnbey, shown us the wonderful appearance of a bacteria
swarm, which often gathers under the microscope, around a small
crumb.  The bacteria swarm differs from the zooglea in that  the
cells of the latter are knitted together by an immeasurable amount
of intercellular substance.   Therefore the zooglea jelly forms, in
water, a sharp, well  defined lined border,  because the bacteria
cells are imbedded in a thicker layer at the edge of  the jelly mass
than in the middle of it.   On the other hand, the thread swarms
are composed of only free movable cells, often so pressed together
that they  touch, and therefore  form a slimy  mass.   In  moving
water, the  single  cells divide themselves without any other assis-
tance, as they  are  not bound  together by  any other substance.
The swarm forming  of bacteria is best seen in a sea acquarium,
when a dead  animal  decays  at  the bottom of the water.  It is
soon covered by a white bacteria mist, which becomes wider from
day  to day, and is plainly seen by its contrast to the  crystal clear
water, and  spreads in currents as a smoke cloud in the water.   In
still  water, the bacteria  propagate by partition more  equally,
because their food is more evenly distributed.   In  this case,  one
generally finds the bacteria swarms near the surface of the water,
often a centimeter in  thickness, like an oily stratum,  which is  dis-
tinguishable from  the deeper and thinner fluid on which it floats.
It is plain that a craving for acids  gather the  bacteria here.
Pasteur designates this form of  bacteri i as mucor.
  On the surface of fluids in which bacteria multiply,  there swims
generally a very thin iridescent film, in which innumerable bacteria
are arranged  straight or  entwined crosswise,  or following each
other in parallel  lines.   These  films are called,  by  Pasteur,
mycoderma. and are  distinguished from zooglea, for  in the latter
the cells are bound together in round  masses by an  intercellular
substance,  while in the films there exists one single  stratum with-
out an intercellular substance.
     6 
82
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
   Another form  in which bacteria  appear is that of pulverized
 sediment.  As soon as the nourishment of a liquid is exhausted
 in which bacteria are developing, this ceases and the little bodies
 settle on the bottom of the vessel.   The fluid clears day by day,
 so that the surface  first clears like the settling of very light pow-
 ders.  At the bottom of the  vessel the bacteria heap themselves
 up into a white, always thickening, stratum, which appears to the
 naked eye like a sediment of fine, slimy clay.  The bacteria sedi-
 ment is diffused by shaking the fluid, and gradually dissolve until
 the fluid becomes clear again.  The number of the bacteria is pro-
 portioned to  the amount of food in the liquid, and  it is  not diffi-
 cult to get in a reagent cylinder containing ten grammes of food—
 a  settlement  of five  centimeters.   Indeed, it would be  no hard
 matter to get bacteria sediment by the pound.  In this  sediment
 are all kinds  of species mixed together, which are not altogether
 dead, for by seeding them  in  a fresh liquid  containing their
 nourishment, these kinds of bacteria multiply very quickly, like
 yeaet cells.   It is therefore possible  that in all waters these kind
 of bacteria are found, which  begin to develop as  soon as food is
 offered them.  This change of specific gravity of bacteria is very
 strange, because so long as they are movable in the water they
 must have the same specific gravity as water.  Perhaps the cause
 of their gathering  on the surface is that they  are lighter than
 water.  It is  the  opposite, however, when the transition is to a
 quiet form.   They  then become  heavier  than  water  when
possibly they have formed the lasting cells (Durosporen) and a
thickened plasma.  In sweet liquids prepared after Pasteur, the
bacteria form and settle very slowly.   I have sometimes found the
fluid remain milky after six months.   In the  sediment, of course,
 are  dead  bacteria, which  one detects  by  the  decaying  of the
plasma and the absence of oil granules.  A rottenness of  bacteria,
which destroys their bodies, very seldom happens, for the bacteria
sediment will remain unchanged for many months, perhaps for an
indefinite length of  time, which is evidence of the presence of a
hard  cell membrane, and is entirely  different  from infusoria,
which, in decaying, entirely dissolve.
  Bory remarked, in  1824, that dead  " vibrio bacillus,"  in thou-
sands, kept themselves unchanged for years in  a corked bottle.
Ehrenberg is mistaken in  doubting this.
  Most bacteria have  an  active and a motionless  state.  Their
movement is a rotation  on the longitudinal axis, and is accom- 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
83
 panied with active and passive bendings  and stretchings in the
 length of the thread, but is never serpentine.   All the different
 movements are  governed by this law.  Bacteria can, through a
 simple change of rotation, move backwards  and forwards.  No
 morphological distinction  of front and rear can be  determined.
 Bacteria have  no  special movement organs, and none  have yet
 been discovered.  The motion of bacteria is not more or less won-
 derful than their entire analogy  to oscillaria.  Of the movement
 organs of spirillum, recently discovered by me, I will speak later.
 The movement of bacteria seems to depend  on the presence  of
 acids.   When acids are absent bacteria go over to the motionless
 state.  But without recognizable  cause rest and motion change  at
 short intervals.   The active condition is lasting when the bacteria
 are bound in jelly-like masses or films.   The  movement is never
 noticed with round bacteria and certain thread bacteria.
   It is doubtful whether bacteria form spores or conidia.  In the
 stillness of  sediment  or slime masses we sometimes find bacteria
 cells which have a strongly giittering, oily substance in them, and
 seem to be "cells of duration."  Perhaps those wonderful bacte-
 ria, which are said  by some to possess a tail and head, are nothing
 more than " duration cells."  I found them in 1851 in great quan-
 tity in an infusion of dead flies; also in spoiled paste, white of an
 egg  and other spoiled liquids.  Numerous round or  oval bodies,
 with a strong, oily  appearance, are sometimes found among them,
 such as expand  into short, tender threads.   They swim like bacil-
 lus subtilis, of which  they remind one.
   These are the only developing conditions in bacteria  that I
 have been able to discover.  After mature study, reviewing their
 classification, I  do  not intend to settle on the difference between
 natural species,  form species and physiological species, or to give
 a complete enumeration of  all existing  species.   I rather  intend
 to revise and classify a number of  forms which appear to me to
 have a right of  recognition, because they deserve a more special
 study.   I shall  submit a critical revision of  those species which
 appear  oftenest  and  have been noticed by many, and I shall at-
 tempt to show their difference in  a much stronger light than has
 been done before.  I hope such an effort will not be useless.  In
 the midst of the chaos and confusion of other descriptions I have
 also  tried to picture and engrave  certain species, always using the
 same magnifying power.   Works  about  bacteria  and similar
organisms, unaccompanied by plates and pictures, I consider use- 
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THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
less, because they cannot  fix the forms, while the characteristic
but unfinished plates of Lewenhoek and O. F. Miiller make these
forms  recognizable.
  I classify bacteria into four (4) groups, of  which each  consists
of one or more specie.   Not to confuse the nomenclature, I have
kept throughout the old names of the species, though I have clas-
sified them distinctly according to other principles.
  1st  Genus.—Sphero bacteria,  (globular  bacteria.)   Species—
micrococcus,
  2d Genus.—Micro bacteria; rod bacteria.   Species—bacteria.
  3d Group.—Desmo bacteria,  (thread bacteria.)  Species—ba-
cillus.  Species—vibrio.
  4th Group.—Spiro bacteria.   Species—spirillus.  Species—spi-
rochete.

                 3.  GLOBULAR BACTERIA.
  Globular bacteria  can  be classed according  to the shape of
the cells as globular  or oval.  Tuey are of a minute size, less than
1 micrometer.   Granular contents are  not  noticed, but a double
outline membrane.   In consequence of their method of  partition
the cells  are  connected in couples, and are narrowed at  the
point of  partition.
  When the partitioning continues  there occurs  short  chains  of
three  to four, or eight or more links, which are either straight or
crooked, and in consequence  of their being drawn in show  the
form  of rosaries.
  These chains, therefore, differ from  the  leptothrix forms  of
thread bacteria, which has no hour-glass contraction on their links,
just as the thread of the nostoc species differ from those of  the
oscillaria.
  Hallier has proposed the name of micothrixfor the rosary forms
of the globular bacteria; I call them torulaform.
  The globular bacteria  may be found in  two  stages of develop-
ment beside the rosary form.  The  cells which form  a chain  are
subject to  a displacement,  because, no doubt,  the intercellular
substance which connects  the  links is soft;  therefore, the chains
appear irregular, bent zig-zag, and single links lay themselves  the
other way, and thereby, when the  partitioning continues,  there
occurs a confused  mass, bags and  colonies of cells which consist
of a large number  of cells, and show in  irregular ranks.  You
would  hardly  think the origin of such  colonies to be a single 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
85
 little globule, if  you did not see the different stages of develop-
 ment of the globular bacteria in small-pox lymph, though it may
 be also found in different kinds.
   It  is  often the  case  that  these daughter cells, which occur
 from the partition, place themselves close to  the mother cells,
 without  adhering in chains, and connect themselves  with these
 through their intercellular substance without adhering in chains.
 In this  way there occur heaps of innumerable globular cells,
 which form jelly-like sheen masses, which  are often exceedingly
 tenacious,  extensive threads  drop-like,  or membranous. This
 sheen formation may  be especially observed with  the  pigment
 bacteria, which  grow  in  the open air ; but it  is also the usual
 form of those species  occurring in pathological processes which
 overgrow in thick layers the sick organs,  or which encamp in  the
 interstices of the lymph vessels and other tissues.  This construc-
 tion corresponds with the zooglea form of rod bacteria, but as a rule
 differs by the smaller development of their intercellular substance,
 in consequence of which  the globular cells are close  pressed on
 top of each other, and show under  the microscope a very charac-
 teristic, closely dotted  and finely granulated appearance.
   Pasteur  gives the globular  bacteria different  names.   Those
 with single or double cells he calls  monas; the gelatinous masses
 he calls mycoderma; the rosary threads he calls torulace.   Under
 the latter name Van Tieghen  gives them the name of torulace.
 Ehrenberg calls the globular  bacteria, monads.  The infusoria,
 without color, he calls  monas crepusculus.  Those which produce
 a  red pigment  he call monas prodigiosus.   Hoffman  also calls
 globular bacteria by  the same name  and  plates them.  The
 globular bacteria cannot be called monads for the following rea-
 sons:  The  species  monas includes, in  its present grouping, two
 different beings ;  on the one  hand, zoospores  of  water fungi,
 myxomycites and others, which are mouthless,  and on the other
 hand infusorias, which, with a mouth, take food particles.  Both
 forms are either globular or oval, and colorless, moving by  the
 aid of a tail end.  But  there is  no  tail end to the globular bac-
 teria as far as I can  see.   They have no spontaneous motion, and
they only show some molecular motion, which may be very swift
with these small and light bodies and easily mistaken for a spon-
taneous motion,  especially if true  monads involve the globular
cells in their motions.
  On account of the want of spontaneous motion, Schrceder gave 
86
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
the globular bacteria, which produced pigments, the same names
given by  Darwin  to the motionless rod bacteria of splenic fever
blood.  Splenic fever bacteridie differ from globular  bacteria en-
tirely, either in rod or thread forms.  They cannot, therefore, be
classed with globular bacteria merely  because they  are wanting
in motion.  It is not  improbable that  Hallier understood  by his
micrococcus, the same organisms, which I call globular bacteria.
But Hallier's description of the micrococcus, as  proved by Hoff-
man and DuBarry, is so filled with false ideas and uncritical hy-
potheses, that it is almost impossible to pick out his correct obser-
vations.
   Setting aside  forms and motions, the globular bacteria differ
from  the  staff bacteria by their functions.  " Bacteria termo " is
the ferment of putrefaction, globular bacteria  are  also ferments,
but do not produce putrefaction, only a decomposition of another
kind.   As  a rule,  they  struggle for their existence on the same
ground with the putrefaction bacteria,  and if  they succumb their
products,  are destroyed by the latter.
   As  it is difficult  to  class  the species  micrococcus by the form
and size of their cells, but  easy to class them by their physiologi-
cal functions, I  give here the following  three groups, chromo
gene, zymogene,  and pathogene or pigment, fermentation  and
contagium generators.
   Globular bacteria, which occur in a colored gelatinous mass, I
call pigment bacteria.  All pigment  bacteria  vegetate  in  the
zooglea form ;  that  is, they form a slimy mass, which, in  conse-
quence of the enormously quick multiplication of their  cells upon
the surface of their sometimes fluid, sometimes solid organic food
substance, envelope  themselves in a colored slime.  The pigment
is brought out by  contact with the air,  and appears  first  on  the
surface, and by  and by gets more and more embedded in  the
depth of the water.
   All pigment bacteria give an alkaline reaction ;  some of the
mixtures  in which  they  multiply have  been  originally acid or
neutral.   Alkaline reaction will  ai%ise  as soon as  color is  pro-
duced.  According to Schrceder,  the production of acid precedes
alkaline reaction, and by overgrowth of the alkaline material  the
pigment is destroyed.
   Boiled  potato slices, are an inexhaustible source of pigment
bacteria when  left  exposed to damp air.  After a short while a 
RESEARCHES UPON  BACTERIA.
87
 slimy  colored  mass forms  upon these potato slices ; hence  we
 suggest the air carries the spores of pigment bacteria.
   According as  the  pigment is  soluble in water or not,  pigment
 bacteria fall  into  two groups.  In the second group the pigment
 consists of protoplasm and intercellular substance  (zooglea).  In
 the first group it develops in the  medium  in which it vegetates.
   The first class have yellow and red pigment.
   The second class have orange, green and blue.  Of some colors
 we are not yet certain.
                    INDISSOLUBLE PIGMENT.
   1. Micrococcus prodigiosus.
   2. Micrococcus luteus.
                        SOLUBLE PIGMENT.
   1. Micrococcus aurantiacus. ***
   2. Micrococcus chlorinus. ***
   3. Micrococcus cyaneus. ***
   4. Micrococcus violaceus. ***
   5. Micrococcus  uree, ammonia ferment.
   It is known that fresh, normal urine is clear and a little acid; that
 in getting cold it precipitates a sediment of urate of soda and other
 sediment, and at the same time it becomes non-acid.  After four
 or five days, and  sometimes sooner, according to circumstances.
 it becomes alkaline, and is  subject to  a  fermentation,  in which
 the urine decomposes and produces carbonate of  ammonia.  It
 was  supposed  long ago  that  a  ferment was  the  cause of the
 alkaline fermentation, but Pasteur gave  us the proof that this was
 an organism  and communicated from the  air, as boiled urine pro-
 tected from the dust remains unchanged  and  acid  after  months,
 and, as Pasteur has lately shown, after many years.  He also showed
 different organisms in the alkaline urine, as mould fungi and bacte-
 ria.  There is one structure,  however, he shows with great proba-
 bility to be the especial ferment  of  alkaline urine,  by which the
 urine is changed  into carbonate of ammonia, and in consequence
 the alkaline urates and phosphates of ammonia and magnesia are
 produced.  This ferment is, according to Pasteur, torulaceoe formed
 globular cells, in rosary shape, of \\ micrometer  diameter.  Van
 Tieghen proves by experiment that Pasteur's idea was correct,  by
 showing that in urine diluted with a ferment water,  in which was
some  of the  rosary-formed urine ferment, which  he also  calls
torulaceoe, urea and uric acid disappear in  thirty-six hours, and 
88
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
are changed into carbonate of ammonia.  Other ferment organisms
do not  produce ammoniacal fermentations.  For instance, beer
ferment put into  urine produces  alcoholic  fermentation.  Van
Tieghen also found that hippuric acid was changed into benzoic
acid  and glycollamine by urine  ferment, probably identical with
torulaceoe.
  Pasteur gives us a new and better plate of  urine ferment.  He
thinks it is identical with  the one he  has shown in slimy thread
forming wine, whose  rosary  threads  consist  of globular cells of
2-10 micrometer.
  My own observations corroborate his discoveries.   Fresh acid
urine, after having stood open for  two days  at a temperature of
30 deg. centigrade, shows a  discoloring and a development of
globular bacteria, which swim about singly as  globular or oval
cells, or are attached to each other in  chains of  two, four or eight
links, torulacee-form.  With the chains of four or eight links, I
could see a somewhat larger interval between  every two cells.
The reason  for this is that each two  spring  from a mother cell.
The cells do not always lie in straight lines, but shifting zig-zag
or crosswise form  groups.  The diameter of  the  single  rather
large globules, I determined to be 1J to 2 micrometers.  They
show molecular motion only,  whilst rod  and thread bacteria,
show a  quick, rolling rotation motion.  A few days later they
generally have become motionless, though they continue to mul-
tiply just as fast.

          PATHOGENIC GLOBULAR BACTERIA.
  Pathogenic globular bacteria  develop another series of physio-
logical functions, which we consider to be the ferments of contagia.
It is not my intention to specially mention every case in  which,
during the last four  months, bacteria have been found in quite
differc nt pathological processes of contagious nature.   I will only
point out those which I know myself, or about which observations
of scientific importance have been published.

           MICROCOCCUS VACCINLE — SMALL-POX BACTERIA.
  In my essay on  the organisms of small-pox  lymph in  1872, 1
gave a  detailed  description of  these  little bodies, which, minute
globular and connected in pairs, are found in perfectly clear and
fresh vaccine virus ;  also in the lymph  of  variola pustules in
excessively large quantities, and  also  have  been observed  before 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
89
now with more or less accuracy, especially by Keber, Hallier and
Zinn.
   By enclosing fresh lymph between an  object and cover  glass,
which have been very carefully cleaned,  and at once  sealed  by
asphaltic wax, the lymph was protected from contact with foreign
germs.  In such a  preparation of vaccine  lymph, placed in a
crucible heated to 35 deg. centigrade, after a few hours, the  single
globular cells have multiplied  into rosary cells of  two to  eight
links.   By.shifting of the single members and the continued parti-
tioning, irregular groups  of all imaginable combinations  occur.
In the course of  several days  irregular cell  heaps  of  colonies of
16 to 32 and more globules  were found  of  10 micrometers,  or
even  more, in diameter.  Micrococcus cells of pock are in all cases
motionless.  I could  not  find  a permanent difference  between
those of the vaccinia and  variola, and therefore would call them
different culture  races of one and the same  genus.  I could not
measure the size of the globules, still I put them at \ a micrometer
and less
   C. Weigert, in 1871, before  my researches,  discovered in the .
dead  bodies of small-pox patients the capillaries of  the skin filled
with very small globular bodies, which adhere close  together, and
which I do not hesitate to consider identical with the micrococcus
of the lymph, according to the preparations  which he  has shown
me.   It seems as if the pock bodies get out of the lymphatics into
the lymph of the pustules.  If you preserve pock lymph in  sealed
glass  tubes, it keeps  its activity longer.  Large flakes form, visible
to the  naked eye, which  are  considered  the principal effective
ingredient of the lymph, and was produced by  the multiplication
of the  pock bodies, by adhering and  sticking together.   The
occurrence of large  globular cells, with  oily contents, seems to
show  a formation of permanent cells.

         MICROCOCCUS  DIPTHERICUS--DIPTHERITIC  BACTERIA.
   I shall base what I have to say upon  the important observa-
tions, microscopical,  chemical and  experimental, made  by Oertel,
in 1871.  As early as  in 1868,  Buhl, Hunter, and  Oertel saw a
massy,  fungus  vegetation in  diphtheritic   membranes,   which
Oertel calls  micrococcus.   In  his newer woru, he proves  the
enormous spread of this  micrococcus,  which  appears  without
exception,  in  all  cases  of  diphtheritic  sickness,  upon  the
mucous  membranes  of larynx  and trachea,  equally also in the 
90
THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.
lymphatic  vessels  and  in  the capillaries  which  surround  the
lymphatics, between the meshes of the fibrous connective tissue,
also in the fat cells in the kidneys, in the muscular tissue, and
also in the blood itself.  The micrococcus of diptheria, consists
of oval shaped granular formed cells of ^ up to 1 TV microme-
ter, which are sometimes single  or cling together  in  couples
or rosary chains of four to six links, and are  also found in im-
mense multiplication like colonies on the  surface and interstices
of  the tissues of  the  sick  organs, forming  globular  masses,
cylindrical or in nests.
  The plates which Oertel has added to his work leaves no doubt
that these fungi belong to the globular bacteria.  Oertel mentions
a second movable state of his micrococcus,  which he calls  micro-
coccus rocket like.  He says that the  round  shaped  bodies single
or in couples, or in torula chains, rotate or  move like  screws and
have  partly single or double  fly-thread.  In  the blood of such
people, Oertel found an  innumerable quantity  of moving bodies)
really  rod bacterias,  by their shape.   The principal and most
important part of Oertel's observations lies in the proof that the
micrococcus colonies degenerate and destroy all the  tissues and
muscular fibres around which they entwine themselves and pene-
trate.  The fungus growth spreads especially upon the  mucous
membrane.  They besiege the cells, enter into the young exuda-
tion cells,  and cause a slow disintegration.   They fill the capil-
laries and lymphatics, and cause, in  a mechanical way, the arrest
of the circulating fluids, which must lead to a  serious exudation,
as they choke  up the capillaries and produce arrest  of the blood
circulation,  thus  producing  a  destruction of  the material of the
walls of the capillaries and even a tearing of  the  same.  In  very
violent sickness, enormous quantities of fungi in  the  uriniferous
tubules and Malpighian corpuscles of the kidneys are accumulated,
which causes a general diseased condition of these  organs.  The
urine is  exceedingly full of  these fungi, which are excreted from
the organs.  It is evident that diphtheria,  as a rule, is found  in
the mucous membrane of the trachea, as these are exposed to the
attack of the micrococcus germs, which no doubt,  are conveyed
by  the air.  But  the experiments  of Oertel upon animals, have
shown that by vaccinating the exudation infected with micrococ-
cus heaps  subcutaneously or upon open wounds  of  the  different
parts  of the  body  diphtheritic  sickness  is  invariably  caused.
Diptherica is  not  a local  pathological process,  though  it  may 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
91
commence with it;  it is a general sickness by infection,  which
spreads,  radiating over  the whole  body, starting from the focus
of infection which bears all proof of blood poisoning.   If the
poison commences from a  contagium, its bearer, as vaccinating
trials have shown, is the micrococcus cells.  The effects of these
organisms are specifically different from the general putrefaction
ferments, as vaccinations with putrifying material has never been
able to  cause  an attack  of  diphtheria.   Inflammation  of the
wind-pipe can be also  caused  by administering a  few drops
of ammonia.   In this case those fearful distructions do  not occur
which characterize the diphtheritic infection sickness, and which
belongs  to the power of the  micrococcus.  By  eliminating the
micrococcus  cells in the  urine a slow process  of recuperation is
introduced.

                     MICROCOCCUS SEPTICUS.

   Under this name globular bacteria have been proved in the last
two years, especially by Leyden, Jaffi, Buhl, Traube and others to
be present in different putrid sicknesses of men.  The influence of
these organisms is the cause of pyemia  and septicoemia,  as also
the form  of  sickness called  mycosis intestinalis.   Klebs, found
in  the  secretions of  wounds small globular cells of \  micro-
meter, motionless, close together, in heaps or connected into rosary
chain  threads.   The same organisms of  zooglea form, inhabiting
the  granulating surfaces  of ulcerating cartilages, (On Gunshot
Wounds,  1872)  he  calls microsporon septicum. These structures
entering the plasma cells of the tissues cause inflammation and
suppuration of the bone.   In traumatic osteomyeletis entering into
the vessels,  they fill the same and get into the  blood, and  are
deposited in places where the circulation is  slower.   All  around
they  cause  inflammation,  suppuration  and  abscess formation.
They cause by their vegetation, or by a ferment which they have,
a chemical change in the  wound fluids,  or in the blood, whose
product  the fever-creating power differs very  much from common
putrefaction.  Experiments corroborate the contagious effects of
these organisms.  The wound fluids, if filtered through clay cylin-
ders  lose their poisoning effects.  The same organisms Klebs also
found in septic processes.   Observations  by Richinghausin of the
million  fostering poison of pyemia, typhus and other sicknesses,
which are caused by bacteria, agree with  this.  Klebs,  besides
movable globular cells, mentions  the presence of staff-like bodies 
92
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
of oscillating motion, connected to long threads and motionless.
But Orth denies that putrefactive  or rod bacteria are accom-
plices of the septicoemic processes, and refers  them to the patho-
genic effect of the micrococcus spores, which doubtless belong to
the globular  bacteria.
                     MICROCOCCUS BOMBYCIS.
  Regarding  these  little  bodies  I  am  compelled to  refer  to
Pasteur's researches, as I have not studied them myself.  Pasteur
shows in a series of essays published since 1868, in the transac-
tions of the Academy of Paris, that a very severe epidemic took
place during recent years among silk worms in the south of France.
This epidemic is entirely different from the Muscardine or Gattine,
and these animals dying of this sickness were designated as morts
plats and morts blancs.
  The cause  of this sickness is a ferment " en  chapelet," or  neck-
lace,  similar  to  the   one found also  in  other  fermentations,
consisting of little globules bound  together in two, three, four or
five links of one micrometer diameter, which, together with monads,
vibrios and bacteria, are found in great quantity, especially in  the
intestinal tract of the sick worms, but which cannot be founi in
the healthy ones.  Although a closer investigation might yet be
desirable, there can be no doubt that these corpuscles " en chape-
let"  are  the torula  form of a  pathogenic species of globular
bacteria.
                      GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.
  In  reviewing these  observations  which I  have  made  upon
the micrococcus or globular  bacteria, it will be found that these
little  organisms  are  of great importance, both  in a chemico-
physiological and a pathological point of  view.  The latter would
appear of  greater value if  the material of investigation  would
permit in  all cases the distinguishing of globular bacteria from
rod  bacteria.  I refer particularly  to  observations  about  the
existence  of  bacteria in pyelo-nephritis,  typhus,  cholera, scarla-
tina, measles, tuberculosis, farcy, rinderpest, etc., etc.   But I must
particularly call attention again to the observations of  Pollander,
Brauell,  Davaine, and more recently  of Bollanger, who state that
in the highest states of contagious sicknesses amongst animals
in the splenic fever  and pustule maligne  of  men,  not globular
bacteria, but motionless thread  bacteria are the cause.   We  are
therefore, not safe in regarding  all pathogenic bacteria as globu-
lar  bacteria. 
researches  upon Bacteria.                 93
           MICRO-BACTERIA—ROD  BACTERIA.
  The second group of bacteria I have  called micro-bacteria or
rod bacteria.   They are similar to globular bacteria in the small-
ness  of  their  cells,  and  their union into  gelatinous or slimy
masses.  But they differ without regard  to their physiological
functions by their short cylindrical  shape and the  spontaneous
motion of their cells.   Iu this genus I only recognize one species,
which I call bacterium in the most limited sense.   The organisms
belonging to this species  consist of  short  cylindrical or elliptical
cells,  which  hang  together  in  couples  during  their partition.
After the partitioning is completed, the  daughter cells separate,
while  sometimes they  still adhere  to  each  other at an  angle.
Rarely the daughter cells commence to partition themselves before
they have isolated themselves, and then we may see four cells in
one line   Under favorable conditions of sufficient food  and car-
bonic acid, they have  a vivid spontaneous  motion, but in such a
way that states  of rest  are  succeeded suddenly by  states of
motion.  They form no chains  nor threads, therefore they never
appear in leptothrix nor torula  form, but in vegetating unite into
gelatinous  masses,  which differ, as  said before, from the slimy
films and heaps of the globular bacteria by the much more plenti-
fully developed and firmer intercellular substance, and, therefore,
they do  not show the fine granulated  appearance of the slimv
masses of  micrococcus.  The  rod bacteria  may easily be  con-
founded  with free  globular bacteria on account  of their minute
size, or  with single  individuals of thread bacteria; still I  am
convinced  that they  are independent organisms, which do not
originate from these  last, nor  do  they develop into them.   It is
very difficult to distinguish apart  the different kinds of  rod bac-
teria, and the number of the  species is very large.  On boiled
potato slices there vegetate also slimy masses of rod bacteria of
characteristic spindle-formed shape.  Ehrenberg, in his  work on
infusoria  (1838), gives us three kinds of  bacteria;  eight  kinds,
which  he formerly named, he abandoned ;  even still the three
kinds which  he retained  cannot  now  be recognized.   Two of
them,  bacterium  puncturm and bacterium  enchelys, have been
found only in Russia, and marked with  ?  by Ehrenberg himself,
and the  third  one,  bacterium triloculare,  been  observed  in  the
oasis of Ammon and  in Berlin.
  I have made two species, to-wit : Bacterium Termo and Bac-
terium Lineola. 
94
THE EPIDEMIC  at  savannah.
  1 B. Termo :  Ehrenberg in 1830.  We may thank Dujardin for
a more accurate description of these bacteria, whose character he
gives as follows : Form, cylindical; length, two  to three micro-
meters ; thickness, \  to l-5th  of  this size ;  often  connected in
couples with a trembling motion.   This species Dujardin calls the
smallest  of all  infusoria.  It appears, as  he says, very often in
infusions of animal and vegetable  matter,  at  the  commencement
of putrefaction as innumerable, forming swarms, and before other
kinds multiply, to which they  form  the  food.   Again, they are
found in abundance as soon as  the infusion commences to smell
to such a degree that no other kinds can live in it.  In the trans-
actions  of the Berlin  Academy, Ehrenberg, in 1830, first called
attention to what he called Bacterium Termo, which he found in
infusions of hay, of blood, or other substances  In his large work
on infusoria, in 1838,  he gave them the  name of Vibrio lineola,
because it is capable  of slower  snake-like motions.   Dujardin
declares that his Bacteria Termo is also identical  with the one 0.
F. Miiller found in an  offensive infusion after twenty-four hours,
and which he called monas termo, whilst Ehrenberg understands
by  monas termo a true  monad.   The description and plate of
Bacterium termo which Dujardin particularly gave  us, is so charac-
teristic  that this kind can be  easily found  anywhere, although
their sizes vary very much.  In my essay of 1853, I  have treated
of the history of their development, and especially of their grape-
like, globular, gelatinous, zooglea form,  to which Perty  calls
attention in his  book  entitled  " The Smallest Organisms," 1852.
The motion of the bacterium termo does not  vary much from the
motion of other bacteria.  The  cells turn  about  their long  axis,
swim forward,  and,  without turning, swim  back  again, or  go
through the water in a curve ; usually, not quickly, but trembling
and  tottering,  shooting with a  quick   jump,  like  a rocket;
sometimes rotate on their short axis, like the  handle of  a gimlet;
sometimes as quick as  lightning, like  a top ; then  again resting
for  a while and then  run away  altogether, suddenly.  If  one
infusorium swallows swarms of  bacteria termo, you may see them
moving about  vigorously in his stomach.   The cells of bacteria
termo are short, cylindical and  oblong, the contents according to
the medium, being bright or dark.   The cell membrane is com-
paratively thick with a common medium ; they appear like very
tender, dark lines, bound by a bright margin.  We almost always
find  them with their partitioning  more or less  advanced or 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
95
 connected  as couples.  They  are  only  1\  micrometer long
 and only |or|  as  wide.   The double  cells  are  of course twice
 as  long.   In innumerable  myriads they  fill the water as soon
 as putrefaction has  begun,  sometimes so thickly  that  the water
 will become a living jelly.  They multiply generally as long as the
 putrefaction proceeds, and  disappear as soon  as putrefaction is
 passed.  From my own experience, and the observations of others,
 I have come to the conclusion that bacterium termo is the ferment
 of  putrefaction ;  that,  indeed,  no putrefaction  can  commence
 without bacterium termo, or can proceed without their multiplica-
 tion.  I  even suppose  that other bacteria, although they might
 take part in the putrefaction processes, take only a secondary part
 while  bacterium termo  is  the  excitor of  putrefaction—the  true
 saprogene ferment.

        BACTERIUM LINEOLA—VIBRIO  LINEOLA OF EHRENBERG.
  Under this designation I  understand those rod  bacteria, which
 are similar in all regards to the  B. termo, but are much larger, and
 not only longer, but  also, in  comparison, wider, for  which reason, I
 do not consider them a development form of the B. termo.  I find
 them in swill water and in stagnant water, even though no putrefac-
 tion has been noticed, and  also  in slimy heaps on the  surface of
 potatoes, and in infusions of different kinds.  The  cells are clearly
 cylindrical, about four times as long as they are wide, occasionally
 crooked, and possessed of strong, translucent, soft contents, filled
 with fatty granules,  and therefore dark punctated.  Their  length
 is 3.8 up to 5£ micrometer;  their width is 1^  micrometer.   They
 are found singly or  hanging together in couples, sometimes form-
 ing crooked double rods ;  exceptionally,  also, two double pairs3
 but  never  forming  longer  threads.  They move like B. termo,
 but stronger, trembling with the one end as if  they had a tail, or
 swimming  about  in curved lines forwards and  backwards; then
 they jump  a little, and again continue  their circles, or rotate
 around one  fixed  point, like  the arm  of  a lever.  B. lineola
 forms zooglea jelly  of a similar kind  to  B.  termo, as  I have
 stated  in 1853.   I  observed in such zooglea that the motionless
 little rods, being imbedded in the water-like jelly,  suddenly com-
 mence to turn, make  with one  end a motion like a gimlet, and
 swim away.   Double rods, being in the state of  partition, came
out of  the  jelly and moved away.  If the single  rods  are some-
what bent,  or the  double rods have knees, they make, in rotating, 
96                THE  EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH*.
a snakey motion, which caused Ehrenberg to put these senseless
cells amongst his vibrios.   Ehrenberg at first called them bacte-
ria; later on vibrio tremulens, and gives the size as ^-fg- of a line,
that is, 7 to 8 micrometer; but the size of the vibrio lineola is put
at 7i_ to TUVo of   a line> taat is> 6 to 2 micrometers,  so that he
seems to mix  together the smaller forms of the bacteria termo
with the larger B.  lineola.  I have, therefore, with Dujardin, kept
the name of lineola for the larger form, but called it  a  special
kind of  the genus bacteria.   It is possible, however, that I shall
include  several species in the bacteria lineola, and that especially
a large and elliptical form may be designated bacteria tremulens.
Whether the bacterium lineola is a specific ferment I cannot say.
  To the true baeteria belong, also, according to the opinion  of
Hoffman and  others,  the  ferment of lactic acid.  Pasteur, the
discoverer  of  the milk ferment, describes  this  as champignon,
short, slightly  drawn  in  about the middle,  as  if two  points
had been connected  together.  The  plate  shows  the bacterium
termo, and also chains  of four links are found, which  show a
globular bacteria  form.  My  observations  about the ferment of
lactic acid have not yet been brought  to a close.  If you  observe
with the microscope the souring of milk, butter  globules of all
sizes  and  pseudo  bacteria,   obstruct every clear  view.  Soon,
besides  other   organisms,  globular  B.  and  B. termo  appear,
later on, also oidium lactis.  If  sugar of milk  is exposed to the
air, with a  warm temperature,  in a few days  it becomes  dissolved
and sour,  innumerable bacteria form, which after  awhile make a
thick chalk-like sediment.  It  must be left to later observations
which of these organisms is the true  ferment and which are only
secondary companions.  As in the souring of milk a large num-
ber of different processes occur, the fermentation of each ferment
is difficult to state.  I  myself found in the souring of milk globu-
lar  cells similar to those in urine ferment, like those with  rosary
chains, hanging in torulce form, of  two, four or eight cells.  A
solution of sugar of milk on the 20th of February was discolored,
on the  24th  was  sour, on  the  27th its  sediment consisted  of
globular beer ferment  of rosary chains, 1| to 2 micrometers diam-
eter.  Pasteur says that the souring of milk is caused by the lactic
acid, which is formed from milk sugar.  But alkaline and neutral
milk gets sour also if it comes in contact with vibrios, which show
an active power analogous to the lob upon caseine.  These vibrios,
which cannot be killed by boiling, but die at 105 deg. centigrade, 
 
ALCOHOLIC  FER:
         SACCHAROMYCES.
  *> 2> 3> 4, 5> °»—Saccharomyces Acrevisise.
  9 —Saccharomyces Mycoderma.—Pasteur.
  io—Mucor Racemosa.
  u—Mycoderma Aceti—Vinegar Ferment.
  I2> I3»—Organic Corpuscles of  dust found by Pasteur in ordinary atmosphere
mixed with amorphous particles.
                         " On Fermentation," by P. Schutzenberger. 
                    RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.                 97

 are the bacteria of butyric acid.  The name is bacterium subtilis.
 If milk which  is sour becomes alkaline after a long time from
 putrefaction, egile bacteria form, according to Hoffman.
   The true ferment of acetic  acid  has  never  been  determined,
 botanically.   Former observers, for instance Kutzing, describe the
 mother of  vinegar  as  algous jelly,  in  which  an enormous
 quantity of  globular  cells  are imbedded.   Pasteur describes
 acetic acid ferment as mycoderma  aceti.  It consists, according
 to him, of short constructed members of 1\ micrometer, twice as
 long as wide, in rosary shape, often extended into long chains,
 forming a thin film on the surface.  According to Pasteur, acetic
 acid ferment is similar to lactic acid ferment, perhaps  identical
 with it.  The members of lactic acid ferment are, however, longer
 and constructed less regularly.  Generally we call this peculiar
 form  of; ferment  fungi—vinegar ferment  (atrococcus),  whose
 true-like cells are oblong or cylindrical, and swim on the surface
 of alcoholic  liquids  which have  become  sour, especially beer.
 Pasteur plates  this  atrococcus as a wine ferment, which he calls
 mycoderma  vini.  He says that this mycoderma has no part in
 the formation of vinegar.   It rather antagonizes the development
 of vinegar ferments and develops bouquet of the wine.  Rees, also,
 who describes and  plates this ferment as an especial kind, under
 the name^of  saccharomyces mycoderma, thinks that they have no
 part in the formation of vinegar.
   Vinegar and lactic acid ferments need further investigation.  I
 find that beer  which has become sour, is discolored throughout
 and covered  with a film, whose  discoloring  consists of oval  sac-
 charomyces and  elliptical mycoderma, and an enormous multipli-
 cation of  moving elliptical bacteria,  similar  to the bacteria termo
 but  somewhat  larger than the usual  form,  hanging together
 generally in  couples,  rarely in four if two just parted  cells are
 again parting.   Their  motion is sometimes  trembling, sometimes
 gliding, sometimes moving,  screw-like, sometimes spinning like a
 top.   If the  acetic acid ferment multiplies, they lose their spon-
 taneous motion and  only show molecular  motion.  These  rod
 bacteria fill  the  whole fluid ;  and I find rarely bacillus threads
 ranged  into  lepthothrix  threads.   The  film  on the  surface iH
 formed  of the same bacteria in motionless, parallel, straight and
crooked  lines, and  this  form  Pasteur  has  placed under  the
name  of  mycoderma aceti.   We   also  find globular,  zooglea

    7 
98
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
masses, thickly filled with elliptical bacteria, partly belonging to
a micrococcus species, and formed of round dots.
  Certain rod  bacteria  seem  to  act as chromogene ferments,
The pigment of yellow and blue milk are added since Ehrenberg's
time to the physiological functions of bacteria  (vibrios).   Schroe-
der describes these as bacterium xanthimum, being the bacteria
which produce the blueish green pigment of pus.

       7—THREAD BACTERIA—DESMO-BACTERIA.
  This third genus  of the  bacteria  comprises  two species; the
first of  which   having   straight threads  I  call Baccillus,  the
second with curled threads, I  call  vibrios, which old name how-
ever, is to be taken in a new sense.
  All thread bacteria consist of long cylindrical members,  which
if they are isolated, are similar to bacterium lineola, but multi-
plied by  partition, form longer or shorter threads.   These threads
are not  constructed at their   points of junction like the rosary
chains of globular bacteria,  but are throughout round, like our
long-jointed stick, as the oscillaria.  In this state they are called lep-
tothrix threads.  Thread bacteria  often form swarms, but never
zooglea jelly mass, as I asserted in my essay in 1853.  States of
motion and rest alternate with them,  according to the presence or
absence  of oxygen, or the reaction of  the medium or other cir-
cumstances.  Certain species seem to be without motion.
  It is difficult to separate the  different varieties of  thread bac-
teria.  The differences which we do observe are mostly due to the
strength of their threads, which vary from the  finest  hair,  which
cannot be measured up to the thickness of 1^ micrometer, and also
to the length of their threads, which depends on the number of
members connected in a chain.  They have more or less flaccidity,
which is entirely missing in some forms and very evident in others,
similarly to the flexile beggiatoa.  They have either straight lines
or a wave-like curve to their rigid threads.   The wave-like threads
often deceive in their rotations, simulating an undulating or snake-
like motion, and  thereby have caused  Ehrenberg to call these
germs vibrio, when  this  motion is  really only an optical illusion.
The real motion, which is observed only in long threads, is partly
passive,  partly  spontaneous,  but  only  like  oscillarium  threads,
turning in irregular chains—turning the whole thread and stretch-
ing it, but never changing the  unyielding waves.
   There are two genera. 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
99
               a.--STRAIGHT THREADS GENUS BACILLUS.
   Threads very thin with motion :  Bacillus subtilis.  Threads
 thicker and stiff:  Bacillus ulna.  To this also belong the bacteridia
 of splenic fever, called bacillus  anthracis, which must be classed
 with bacillus  subtilis, according to its  morphological construc-
 tion, but must be classed as an independent variety, on account
 count of its pathogenic importance.
           b.--THREADS CURVED IN WAVE FORM GENUS VIBRIO.
   Threads thicker,  with simple  motion, vibrio rugula.
   Threads thin with complicated wave motion, vibrio serpens.
                       a.--GENUS BACILLUS.
   1.  Bacillus subtilis. (Vibrio Subtilis Ehrenberg.)  (Butyric acid
 Ferment of  Pasteur.
   Ehrenberg found this  variety to  be stiff and  straight when at
 rest; to be swimming in  straight lines,  and  trembling when in
 motion; but without a serpent-like movement, which he thinks is
 caused by the shifting of the cellular membrane of the  thread.
 They measure -£% ssv (60 micrometers) in length, their thickness
 is ^Vo vv\ but the  plate also shows  little rods  of  only | or \ of
 this length.  Dujardin  ranks the  vibrio subtilis  amongst the
 doubtful species, which he does not consider animals but oscillaria.
   I find that Ehrenberg's form is a widely disseminated  species
 found in infusions  together with the bacteria termo and other
 bacteria ;  it is present also in butyric acid fermentation  and in
 other conditions where the bacteria form is not found.
   The threads  are  very thin and minute, so  that  the joints of
 union of  the cell members cannot be recognized, except that you
 can see when the  segments separate, that these segments are as a
 rule six micrometers in length.  These  segments we  find  some-
 times isolated, in  which case they are distinguished with difficulty
 from the  bacteria lineola.  Generally they are found  in  pairs of
 twelve micrometer lengths or in triplets, and then sixty microme-
 ters in length or in  longer extensions.  I have measured threads
 of twenty-six, forty, sixty-six, and even one hundred and thirty-
 two micrometers; the  latter  may have   consisted of  more than
 twenty lengths.
  The thickness of the threads cannot be measured easily,  it is so
 to say of  gossamer delicacy.  The contents  show  no granules.
The threads are very active, or  flexibly passive,  which lends to
their motions a peculiar character. 
100                THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.

  They swim in straight lines with alternate restings, with a cer-
tain clumsiness; sometimes quick  and active, as  if trying to find
their  way through  obstacles like  a  fish trying to find his way
through water grasses; then  they remain quiet for a little while,
suddenly the thread trembles and swims backwards without turn-
ing, and will soon swim again straight ahead.  It is very difficult
to prove that they turn constantly on their long axis; it is only to
be noticed by a certain  trembling of  the threads; if one of the
links in the act of partition is somewhat bent,  this motion on the
long axis becomes clearly visible.
  As  a rule, the threads  have a pendulum motion  at  a varying
point of beginning.   When the pendulum  motion is very  quick
the flexible threads are passively and  actively bent by the resist-
ance  of  the water;  longer  threads  show  spontaneous flexible
curves. The two ends approach each other like the ends of a bow,
then the bow bends to the opposite extreme.   Again, it stretches
itself  straight;  if the threads are very long, several curves follow
each other like waves; a  true, short, serpentine motion is not found.
Observing the thread for sometime under a cover glass the motion
becomes slower and the  intervals of  rest lengthen, though  the
motion does not cease altogether.
  I have  expressed the opinion that this kind might form only
cells or gonidia, and that these globular, or oval gonidia, might be
developed when germinating into movable tailed forms just as I
have shown on my plates.
  Pasteur  describes  the ferment of  butyric  acid  fermentation
which he  described as long, thin movable vibrios, which  are able
to bend their bodies.   His  plate of  1864  shows distinctly our
bacillus subtilis.  Before I ever saw the plate of  Pasteur, I knew
that this species took an active part in the Butyric acid fermenta-
tion, from the fact that  beans and peas which  were put into dis-
tilled water in a closed glass retort and heated to eighty degrees
centigrade, by which bacteria  termo  are generally killed, on ac-
count of want of air changed into butyric acid.  This fermentation
developed only bacillus subtilis, and no bacteria  termo, as I shall
prove later on.
  Pasteur says in his essay on spontaneous generation of  1862,
that boiled milk gets filled  with small vibrios after a few days,
which he designates as  bacteria lineola, but  which, according to
the plate,  must be our bacillus  subtilis, and they  were only  killed
by a temperature of 105 deg. centigrade. 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
101
   Rheinfleish, in his essay on lower organisms, gives us bacteria
 whose long threads, he thinks, are caused by the mixing together
 of  several separated  members.  These  also  I consider  to be
 bacillus  subtilis.  Hoffman  gives  us the same species without
 separating them from the bacteria termo.

                     2.—BACILLUS ANTHRACIS.
   I  have  never  investigated  the  bacteria  of  splenic  fever.
 Davaine's and  BoUanger's observations, however, show that  they
 differ only from the bacillus subtilis in the place of their existence
 and in their ferment function.  Davaine  describes them as  stiff
 threads of 4 to 12 to 50 micrometers  length  and  of very minute
 width, rarely bent or crooked.   Bollanger says  that if fresh  they
 have no links and are homogeneous, but that with careful exami-
 nation there  can be seen plasma  and cell envelope  with  the
 segmentation of the little rods into short cylindrical cells.   The
 latter are also found isolated, and are the germs of bacteria.  They
 differ  from other bacteria  by  their  regularity of form and by
 their  having no  motion.    This, however, is also found in the
 bacillus subtilis for short  periods, and  occasionally, according to
 circumstances, for long periods.
   I  attach to this a plate of  the  bacteria  found in splenic fever,
 from a preparation which Koebner  gave me,  taken from recently
 dead cattle.   These specimens of bacillus do not differ from the
 butyric acid ferment bacillus subtilis, but, as a  rule,  are stronger,
 shorter and show less motion.  Bollanger says  that  the bacteria
 of splenic fever blood were discovered by Pollander in 1849 even,
 before  Davaine in 1863, and that  Brauell made very important
 researches into this matter  in 1857.   He says the  rods  are
 straight cylindrical, 7 to 12 micrometers long, 8-10 to 1 microme-
 ter thick.   In the fresh state they are homogeneous.  When they
 are in water, or in a state of putrefaction, they show  a jointed
 structure of short cylindrical cells,  each one containing a darker
 plasma in the transparent cell envelope.   They break up soon into
 single globules,
  Bollanger considers the rods of splenic fever as the torula form
 of globular bacteria, and thinks that the globular bacteria which
 are also found isolated, may multiply  by partition and be joined
 together by links.  I have never found in  splenic fever rosary
 chains,  but without intending  to compare my observations with
BoUanger's very careful observations, I must  adhere to my former 
102
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
opinion that splenic fever bacteria are a bacillus species, and can-
not believe in their relationship to globular bacteria.
                       3.  BACILLUS ULNA.
  This name I give to stiff and thick chain threads which, by their
dense and finely granulated plasma,  rank close to the oscillaria
species, and can only be distinguished by  the  short and rod-like
threads, readily breaking up into shorter members.   I observed
such members,  remarkable for their thickness, distributed amongst
other species, sometimes predominating over, or to the exclusion
of, all other.  Water which had been poured on boiled white of
egg, and boiled  with this once more, and left  exposed, became
discolored after  two  days.  This  discoloration  was  caused by
innumerable little rods  which moved strongly and  actively, but
were  stiff and  little flexible by themselves.  I could observe a
distinct membrane and  a thick protoplasm with dark granules.
The single membranes were 10 micrometers long and 2 microme-
ters wide.  They formed straight or zig-zag-like broken chains of
two or four members.   The chains of  four links had, therefore, a
length of 42 micrometers,  and showed very queer motions.   Not
only the whole thread rotated, but also the single links, as if they
wanted to separate, making diverging motions.  Five  days later
they were all dead, and lay in heaps on the bottom.  Little  drops
showed themselves on their decaying threads, and in  their place
bacillus subtilis appeared in the water.  Other glasses  filled with
boiled white of  egg also developed bacteria, but none of this large
bacillus form.
  Ehrenberg says that the rods of vibrio  bacillus  have a sliding
motion  without being serpent-like, sometimes having an undula-
ting motion.  I  think this is impossible.  Ehrenberg estimates
them at ^vvv  in length,  and y^n^  in thickness.  Dujardin
gives but half  this size.

                     6.  GENUS VIBRIO.
  The two species of this genus are characterized by the wavy
motion of their threads, and they form, therefore, a transition into
the screw bacteria or  spirilla.
                       1.  VIBRIO RUGULA.
  The threads of this species are eight to sixteen micrometers in
length, have finely granulated contents, and a soft and thick pro-
toplasm.  They are twice as thick as the bacillus subtilis and es- 
RESEARCHES  UPON BACTERIA.
103
 pecially distinguish themselves  by being like an italic s.   When
 the thread rotates slowly on its long axis it looks like a gimlet
 in motion.  If it  turns very quick, it  is easily confounded with
 bacillus subtilis.  The smaller species of this vibrio have but very
 little curve.  I have measured them as of 8, 9.6, 10.4, 14.4, 17.6
 micrometers.  Longer ones are not to be found, but shorter ones,
 which turn like a gimlet  or swim like an eel and  are  shaped
 like an S.  Vibrio  rugula form large swarms like swarms of bees;
 the decaying rods  form films.  Lewenhoek discovered  them on
 the mucus, or tartar, of the teeth and in the faces of diarrhoea.
 Ehrenberg says they can be easily confounded with bacillus.  He
 places their size at -Jg- to tl '".
                        2.  VIBRIO SERPENS.
   I distinguish this  form from that of vibrio  rugula  in this,
 thai the latter have in each link only one or one-and-a-half curve,
 while the threads of vibrio serpens have only half the thickness,
 are not flexible, and have several regular wave curves;  in rotatingj
 they show three or  four undulations, the shortest  members have
 also a double curve, still there are also chains of two to four bent
 pieces, which show a greater length and  many curves.  I  meas-
 ured such threads  of 11.5,  13.1,  15.6,  19.5, 20.8 rnd 25.7 micro-
 meters.   The distance between two  curves  is  five  to six  mi-
 crometers.
   The motion is the same as the subtilis, the undulation excepted.
 A peculiar sight is  the  swarms which grow into each other and
 form long strings, in which innumerable trembling staffs lay parallel
 to each other.

         8.  SPIRO BACTERIA—SCREW BACTERIA.
   The fourth group of screw bacteria  is  closely  related  to the
 vibrio  serpens.  It might even be  better to put both  in the same
 group.   An evident difference from the  genus vibrio is the more
 close and narrow spiral thread of  the screw; and  here too it may
 be added that I have observed an organization in the flexible whip
 in a species of spirilla volutans, which has not been seen in other
 bacteria, and which makes a special class necessary for  the species
 having such organs of motion.  I have  seen these whips only in
 the largest kinds of spirilla, but it must be also  looked  for in
 other similar kinds. Future observations will prove whether other
species of bacteria have also this whip, as Ehrenberg  has always
asserted. 
104
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
  The four species of screw bacteria into which Ehrenberg andT
have classified this group are very easily distinguished.  They are
generally found together, but I do not believe that they are either
varieties or  stages of development of one and the same species.
I think  that the  spirilla do not  exist in artificial infusoria, but
only in those prepared with river water, so  that  their genus are
spread, not by the air, but by water.   According to Ehrenberg we
have two genera of  screw bacteria:
  a.—Spirochete, having a flexible, long, closely wound screw.
  ft.—Spirillum, having rigid, shorter, and open wound screw.

                     a.--GENUS SPIROCHETE.
  This genus has only one species—spirochete plicatilis, of which I
wrote at length in 1853.   Of all spirilla, this  species has the quick-
est  rotation and most flexible motion.  It is rather rare.  Lately,
I have found the spirochete  in  the mucous of  the  teeth.   The
opinion  that the spirochete  plicatilis  is  only  a spiral in  the
atheromatous degeneration of the minute bloodvessels is not cor-
rect
                     SPIROCHETE-OBERMEIERI.
  The most important  fact with  which   in  recent times  our
knowledge of the  existence of ferment organisms in infectious
diseases has been enriched, is the discovery  by Otto Obermeier of
spirilla in the blood of patients sick  with recurrent fever, which
he made in 1868, but published in 1873.  Typhus recurrens has a
fever paroxysm of six to  seven days;  then follows a remission of
eight days;  then a fever paroxysm of five days; and  occasionally
afterwards a third, fourth or fifth paroxysm  of fever after a remis-
sion of nine days.   Obermeier discovered in the blood of  persons
suffering with recurrent  fever  very long and thin screw threads
moving rapidly, but only in the time of  the  paroxysm, not during
the remission, nor  shortly before or after  the crisis.  This dis-
covery has been confirmed by  later observers.   On March 15th,
1873, Carl Weigert showed me in the " All Saints Hospital," at
Breslau, where, in consequence of an epidemic, there were a large
number of cases of recurrent fever, spiral threads in the blood of
the patient.   Here I will remark that these do cot belong to the
species spirilla, but to the  species spirochete, which differ  from
spirilla  by their  flexile screw  threads capable of a circular  and
snail motion.  Of  the  genus  spirochete but one species  was 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
105
 known, which Ehrenberg found in stagnant water near Berlin and
 I near Breslau.
   As their very characteristic shape and motion admits of no mis-
 taking them for other species, we can say with certainty that  the
 spirochete  plicatilis  is not common in putrid  water, but only
 found in exceptional cases.
   The spirochete which is found in the blood of recurrent  fever,
 is the same size, and shape, and motion as the spirochete found in
 swarms, still we must consider it as  a  specifically  different class
 by the peculiar home of their existence and physiological power
 and effects.  I call it, in rememberance of  Obermeier, who dis-
 covered it, and who  died  in  the  cholera epidemic of  1873,
 spirochete  Obermeieri.
   The most important facts relating to the spirochete of  febris
 recurrens have been  discovered by Obermeier, Engel, Bliesener,
 Weigert, Litten, Birch, Hirschfeldt and Laptschinsky, and besides
 such as have been above meutioned are the following:
   The screw motion is constant in the  different  species, but not
 the length of the threads.  Obermeier says they are one and  a half
 to six  times as large as the blood corpuscles.  Engel says they
 are twenty-six times as large as  blood corpuscles.  Litten says
 they form long  chains, too long for the field of the microscope
 without moving.  The screw threads show an undulation, besides
 moving their  position, which characterizes  them as spirochete.
 In the height of  the fever the threads are stiffer or stretched out.
 Towards the end of the paroxysm the motion becomes slower and
 more like a pendulum.   They have a circular motion.   The wave
 motion continues  longest,  even  after  change  of  position has
 ceased.  Spirochete retain  their active motion  out of the  body
 fur upwards of twenty-four  hours; in a solution of salt, one-half
 per cent, for several hours; in  glycerine, mercury, salts and dis-
 tilled water, their motion ceases at once.  Potash  dissolves the
 threads.  The form remains the same in osmium  salts.  The tem-
 perature of sixty degress to  sixty-five degrees centigrade destroys
 them,  but they are not destroyed  at  zero  centigrade freezing.
 This is upon the  authority of Litten.
  The  sickness which is characterized by the spirochete Obermeiri,
 has only  been  known since  March, 1868, according  to  Lebert.
This sickness is sporadic  and endemic,  and very probably  is
imported from a distance.   Generally,  all the occupants of one
room  are attacked; it is therefore spread by personal contact. 
106
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
  The part which the spirochete plays in the pathological pro-
cesses of  febris recurrens  is yet as  obscure as  the  periodical
appearance and reappearance of them in the blood of the  sick.
It is not known yet whether the spirochete plicatilis of the swarms
and the Sp. Obermeiri of recurrent bloods are specifically different.
or whether they are the same organism, and the contagium of the
first form is developed by the drinking of swamp water containing
spirochete.  It  is also uncertain whether the spirochete threads
which I found in April, 1872, in  the  mucus of teeth, is  only  an
intermediate stage between the  swamp water spirochete and the
blood spirochete.

                     b.—SPECIES SPIRILLUM.
  Spirillum Tenue.—The fineness of their threads is like the
vibrio serpens.  Like these, the spirillum tenue forms lie closely
in globular heaps, in which  they grow together and  have  no
motion.  Ehrenberg, with  his  well-known keen eye, has noticed
this species.  Dujardin says that they are one and a half  times as
thick as the undula.   Ehrenberg's plate and description show just
the opposite.   Dujardin connects, without  reason, the spirillum
tenue with the spirillum undula.  His plate shows only the spi-
rillum  tenue.  The characteristic screw motion of the spirilla of
this minute species, which I have observed by the million in every
drop of an infusion, is especially quick,  like lightning, so that the
observer is scarcely conscious of  it.   The height  of the elegant
screw  threads is two  to three micrometers, and the diameter is
about the same.  The thread has one and a half curve, and  is in
form of an S, or Greek omega.  Threads of  two, three, four and
five curves or  turns are more plentiful; the length  is four  to  fif-
teen micrometers.
  No. 2. Spirillum undula differs by  their stronger threads and
somewhat  more open screw thread.  Every turn  has four to five
micrometers in height and diameter;  the members have generally
but a half or one  turn, seldom  one and a half  to three spiral
turns.   Longer ones  are  never seen.   The enormously  quick
motion hardly permits a  careful observation of a single spirillum.
Thej7 move like  meteors,  sometimes like the sudden expansion of
a loosened spiral spring,  sometimes  like  a sling shot; then
they sometimes screw themselves in  one direction.  When they
turn somewhat slower it  looks to me as if they had whips at each
end, but I could not  be certain. 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
107
   O. F. Miiller and Ehrenberg have given characteristic  descrip-
 tions of this species.  Ehrenberg's vibrio prolifer I could not dis-
 tinguish from the Sp. undula.

                     3.--SPIRILLUM VOLUTANS.
   The largest of  the spirilla, the  giant among  the  bacteria.
 Miiller and Ehrenberg have also recognized them.  The plate of
 the latter gives so  characteristic a form that it can be recognized
 at first sight.   Dujardin has not seen or observed this variety.   He
 gives this  name  to a form which he has seen  in sea water and
 infusions of insects and conifera.  His plate, however, does not
 show the character of the large screw turn, but the very tender
 spirals of spirillum tenue.  It is like most of Dujardin's  plates of
 bacteria, worthless for recognition.
   In July, of  1872, I saw Sp. volutans  in  an infusion  of  dead
 fresh water snails, in which  this species, together with spirillum
 tenue, undula, vibrio serpens  and rugula,  multipled enormously,
 and by adding new  food  remained  in  constant  multiplication,
 these species being distinctly recognized.
   Spirillum volutans not only excels by the greater thickness  of
 their threads and their darkly granulated contents, which Ehren-
 berg has also observed, but also by their  regular  corkscrew-like
 spiral, 13.2  micrometers  in height,  6.6  micrometers diameter.
 One turn of  sp. volutans is as large  as three turns of  spirillum
 undula.  The screws are turned to the right.   I have taken great
 pains to recognize the  links as Ehrenberg states them, but  in
 vain—their membrane can  be distinguished  from  the  contents.
 There are  generally two and a  half, three or three  and a  half
 turns.  Double spirals of  six and seven  turns are rare.  Some-
 times a pair twists  itself round each other.
  Spirillum  volutans lies sometimes very quiet, then suddenly
 commences to turn  in a screw-like  motion forwards and  back-
 wards; sometimes shooting with a lively energy, so that the screw
 motion  can hardly be recognized.
  Until opticians have given us microscopes with magnifying pow-
 ers much  greater   than  they now are, and, if possible, without
 immersion, in the kingdom of the bacteria, we shall be like a traveler
in the dark in an unknown country, where he knows that in spite
of all his watchful care he cannot keep from wandering into wrong
paths. 
108
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
                ARE BACTERIA ANIMALS OR PLANTS ?
  Looking over  the literature  of this  subject, it  is seen  that
formerly bacteria were generally considered animals, but now are
considered by most naturalists plants.  Some call certain bacteria
infusoria ; other  species,  or perhaps  the same species in a dif-
ferent stage  of  developement, fungi.  Pasteur even asserts that
vibriones being animals, require oxygen, whilst the same organ-
ism, as far as he considers them  plant-ferments,  vegetate without
oxygen, and that, indeed, to certain of these ferments oxygen  is
poison.   Upon  this  question, I make the same remark  made by
me in 1853.  "Bacteria  (vibriones)  appear to belong to  the
vegetable kingdom, because they show a  close and direct relation
to the true alge.  On the other  hand, bacteria have no true rela-
tions to animals.  The animal kingdom begins with the infusoria,
most of which  (infusoria ciliata) have  a large number of moving
cilie, whilst  a small number, the most simple of them (infusoria
flagellata) have a tail.  Even the lowest  of the  infusoria ciliata
have  a mouth  and esophagus by  which  they take  solid food.
Many kinds  of  the flagellata have  mouths,  and thereby differ
from  all plants.  A few species only  which generally are  found
among the infusoria flagellatta,  have no mouth.   These can be
classed  among plants.   Bacteria have just a little relation to the
rizopods, which  represent a very  simple type of  animal organiza-
tion.  Possibly  a relation to the  monads may be recognised.   The
globular and rod bacteria may be easily mistaken for the  globular
or elliptical  monads.  Should the tails I have discovered in the
spirillum belong to  the  true  bacteria  as  Ehrenberg supposes,
then the mouthless  species of the genus monas would  have to
be classed with the tail bacteria.
  Most writers  who class bacteria among plants, consider them
fungi.   This is  true if we include all cell plants or thalophytes
among fungi, which are deprived of chlorophyl  or  an equivalent
pigment, and therefore cannot  assimilate carbonic  acid.   Bac-
teria  have no relation  to  typical  fungi, which develope a thread
like mycelium and propagate by  bassidia  spores or asci spores.
But they agree in their entire morphological and developing be-
havior with the  phycochromacee, whose cells  are  filled  with
phycochrome, that is a mixture of green pigment, (chlorophyl)
with a blue (phycochrome) and  therefore are  colored of an oxi-
dized  green. The  phycochromacee differ  from bacteria only in
their power  to assimilate carbonic acid, for which reason they are 
RESEARCHES UPON BACTERIA.
109
classed among the alge.  Bacteria are the beginnings  of phy-
cochromacee life.   They are probably one of the oldest phases of
organic life and combine as a primordial form, different charac-
ters belonging to various families of the phycochromacee.  Globu-
lar and  rod bacteria are related to  the  chrocococcacee,  this
being  a  division of  the  phycochromacee,  whose cells vegetate
singly  or in families  connected to the  palmella  jelly by a slimy
intercellular substance.   The chrocococcacee  differ  from palmel-
lacee by their contents of phycochrome.
   Our genus micrococcus bacterium is related to chrocococcacee,
in  which the cell  partition extends in but one direction, while
sarcina belongs to the chrocococcacee  with  a  crosswise partition
Rod bacteria are similar to the genus syne-coccacee, whose species
form a blue green coating, on  humid rocks, and  agree  in shape
with the bacteria ;  micrococccus differs from chrocococcacee by
their small and colorless cells ;  zooglea jelly  and slimy masses we
find in the chrocococcee in very similar  way.
   Thread bacteria  are  closely related  to oscillaria, that  is, with
their sub-genus beggiota and lepthothrix.  Excepting in the short-
ness of the thread,  there is hardly any difference  between them.
The straight bacillus is similar to the normal form of oscillaria.
The wavy rods  of vibrio can be seen also in oscillaria terebriformis
and similar species.
   The species spirochete is closely related to the smaller spirilline.
The spirilla are only  shorter forms  of the same  type.   The  dis-
covery of whips in  the spirillum volutans, which makes it similar
to the  flagellata, makes  the natural  positions of these organisms
rather doubtful, as  no oscillaria have whips.
   The  principal   reason  which  made it  difficult for  most
observers to classify bacteria, as plants was their voluntary motion.
This, however, is only  an illusion.  Will, sensation and  reflex-
action  are such complicated physical functions that they cannot be
detected in these organisms, which have a kind  of spontaneous
motion.  We don't  know what  is the nature of the power of spon-
taneous motion which turn bacteria about their long  axis, causing,
at the same time,  a  changing of  position, but we are convinced
that it does not belong to the kingdom of  will and reflexaction,
but to  the kingdom of involuntary action.
   There  is no relation between bacteria and mould fungi.  When
I commenced these observations I made it  a main object to find
out whether bacteria  come from germs suigeneris, or are developed 
110
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
from  other  fungi.  The results are  in  refutation  of  the  latter
view.
  It is easy to cultivate pennicillium and other mycelia in a fluid
without developing  any bacteria.  It is  easier  still, if you put
in a reagent glass germs of bacteria without fungi spores or my-
celium spores, and cover the  glass with cotton ; the bacteria will
multiply immeasurably,  but  no mycelium will develop.  I have
made hundreds of observations, and they  show me that bacteria
will only bring bacteria,  mould fungi only mould  fungi, and that
no modification from one organism into another can exist.
  All this shows that  bacteria are a group of organisms having
no connection with yeast or mould fungi as regards development.
They are, or may be called fungi in consequence of their parasitic
way of living.  But they very much differ from typical fungi by
the want of  mycelia, and bassidia or asci spores.   They therefore
are,  with justice, called an  independent  part—schyzomycetes.
Bacteria and  schyzomycetes are closely connected with the alge
phycochromacee in  their morphology  and development.  In
trying to  get all these into  a natural system, I have classed the
bacteria and the other schyzomycetes,  together with the family of
phycochromacee, into one natural order, under the name of  schy-
zosporen. 
THE BEHAVIOR OF BACTERIA

       UNDER DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES.
   It seems clear that bacteria cannot survive the boiling  point,
 and it is uncertain, from experiment, at what temperature below 100
 deg. centigrade they cease to live.  Experiments show very uncer-
 tain results, for so very reliable an observer as Schwann says that a
 temperature above the boiling point does not always prevent the
 development of bacteria.  Pasteur says that the utmost  power of
 resistance of bacteria in sour milk reaches the point of 105 deg.
 centigrade.   I say nothing  of Wyman, Crace, Calvert, etc., who
 give a  much  higher temperature.  In June, 1871, I made some
 experiments, aided by Mr. Stud. Troschke.  We boiled  a pea in
 a  glass test-tube with five grammes of distilled water, and then
 cooled  it ; a bacteria drop  being then added.  The retort was
 then placed in water at different temperatures from a quarter to
 a half hour; the neck of the retort was stuffed with cotton. The
 results  were as follows :
   Putrefaction came  on  after three days  with a heat of  45 deg.,
 55 deg., or 60 deg.centigrade.  At 65 deg. c. no change took place
 for a time.   Putrefaction set in  later.  August 7th, the  pea was
 dissolved into a yellow, dirty brown paste.  At 75 deg. c. the pea
 did not putrefy, but the  water did not remain  clear, it  became
 opalescent, and a little bacteria sediment was found.   At 80 deg.
 centigrade, the pea did not putrefy, and the water remained clear ;
 in a second experiment,  after  heating for a half  hour,  a  white
 mycellium  appeared,  but neither Pennicillium nor putrefaction;
 in a third experiment, in  spite of a heating for three-quarters of
 an hour, putrefaction set in;  and in a fourth experiment, after a
 half hour's heating, a little discoloring and sediment appeared, but
 no putrefaction.   Temperature above 80 deg. c. showed no develop-
 ment of bacteria nor putrefaction.  Whilst our experiments have
 shown that in an artificial fluid bacteria  have been deprived of
their power  of development at 60 deg. centigrade, we cannot ex-
plain  whv in other cases bacteria have shown a development in
organic structures after being heated up to boiling points.
      8 
112
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
   The setting in  of  cold weather delays putrefaction,  which is
 evidence  therefore that it suspends the vital powers of bacteria
 and prevents  their increase, while an increase of temperature in-
 creases their  development.    Everybody  knows that meat does
 not putrefy so soon and milk  and beer sour so quickly as in sum-
 mer; the  dead body of a  mammoth, kept unchanged in  Siberian
 ice through thousands of years, and was destroyed by putrefac-
 tion in the shortest  time after the ice had melted  away and the
 temperature had risen.  Here is evidence that  the ferment func-
 tion of putrefaction bacteria does not exist  below zero  c.  It is,
 therefore,  quite important to prove whether bacteria are killed
 by freezing just as they are by heating up  to  60  deg. centigrade.
 The experiments  made by Dr. Horwath proved the opposite, for
 they show that these  organisms can stand a severe  cold without
 being killed.  The experiments  were made as follows:
   A reagent cylinder  was filled with a breeding fluid on June 6th,
 1872, and closed with a cork, through which a thermometer had
 been passed which reached down to the bottom of the fluid.  The
 whole cylinder was placed into a  freezing  mixture, as also a little
 retort filled with the same mixture and the end sealed by melting
 the end of the tube.
   The temperature in the reagent cylinder was as follows:
      12  h., 30 seconds, temperature.........  0 deg.  c.
       1  h., 30    "         "      .........16 deg.  c.
       1  h., 45    "         "      ........17 deg.  c.
       3h., 30    "         «      .........18 deg.  c.
       4h., 30    "         «      .........18 deg.  c.
       5h., —              "      .........17 deg. 5c.
       6  h., —              «      .........14 deg.  c.
       7  h., 30    "         "........ .  9 deg.  c.
  The following day the tubes were taken out—the temperature
was 15 deg. c.   On the 8th of June, after freezing more than seven
hours, an  increase of bacteria was evident by the discoloring of
the fluid.   A  second  series  of experiments with closed retorts,
treated in  the  same way, and frozen to 7 deg. below zero c. for 18
hours, resulted in an increase of bacteria,  clearly visible after the
thawing of the mixture.
  From these  experiments we  see  that bacteria  are not killed by
a very low temperature, even though  lasting for several hours,
but at zero o,  or  probably a somewhat higher temperature, they
fall into a  torpor from the cold.   Their motion, their propagation, 
BEHAVIOR OP BACTERIA.
113
and, therefore, their ferment power ceases, but not their power of
recommencing their propagation in higher temperatures.   While
the thawing of a fluid was  going on, into which a Sp. Volutans
had been frozen, we could  observe,  under the microscope, that
the screw threads remained motionless for some time and simu-
lated death ; but under increasing temperature their vital  activity
was restored, and  they  returned to  life.  Euglenen,  however,
which  were frozen  in  this  fluid were  killed altogether, just  as
higher infusoria, with the exception of  encysted vorticella, whose
contractile vacuoles evidenced the continuance of life. 
 
        REPORT



           ---TO THE---





   CITY COUNCIL OF SAVANNAH




           ---ON THE---





EPIDEMIC DISEASE OF  1820,




    BY WILLIAM R. WARING. 
 
REPORT.
   In compliance with the appointment  of the Council,  I  have
 composed a memoir concerning the causes, character, and treat-
 ment of the late epidemic.  It is  not very brief, in the place of a
 common report, but it has been contracted kito as narrow  bounds
 as could possibly comport with the nature of the subject.  The
 disease made its appearance in May.   A death occurred on the
 7th, another on the 10th, and another on the 30th of that month.
 In June, the mortality was augmented to a death on every second
 day, and the whole sum, at the end of the month, amounted to 14.
 In July, the number of deaths ran up to 39, being an advance to
 more than double the devastation of June. In August, it amounted
 to 111 ; in September, to 241 ; in October, to 268 ; in November,
 to 50, and in December to  3.  The  degree of mortality, on the
 surface of this statement, appears to  have undergone a gradual
 reduction after the  month of September.  But when it  is con-
 sidered that, in the course of this period, the population had been
 greatly diminished by absence and death, it becomes evident that,
 so far from having sustained any diminution, it was really increased
 throughout the month of October.   The whole aggregate of deaths
 resulting from the epidemic, from its commencement in May to its
 conclusion  in  December, is thus estimated at 666.  The  yellow
 fever of 1793,  in Philadelphia, destroyed near 5,000  people, so
 that, reckoning the inhabitants of that city at 50,000, the mortality
 would amount to the proportion of one in  ten.  When the late
 epidemic first appeared in May, the population of  Savannah may
 be computed at 5,000 whites. In June, and beginning of July, it
 was  probably  reduced, from emigration, to 2,500 ;  and,  on the
 14th of September, when the Mayor's proclamation was published,
 the number was still further reduced, and could not have exceeded
 1,500.  The medial population, therefore, of white inhabitants
 may be fairly estimated at 3,000 for the whole season, which would
 constitute a sum of mortality amounting to one in five, and just
doubling that of Philadelphia in 1793.   Such an enormous sweep
of human life has scarcely a parallel in the  medicine of  Europe
or America.   The  epidemic of  the  present year  commenced 
118
THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.
 unusually  early, in a comparison with others of a date prior to
 1817.  In former times, and antecedent to this period, the season,
 commonly denominated the sickly season, was not expected until
 the  latter part of July, or beginning of August.   The month  of
 July, 1816, was, I believe, the most  prominent for its health and
 pleasantness in that year ;  and the late Dr. John Grimes informed
 me then, that it was not a casualty, but  a general  and expected
 occurrence.  In 1817, some vicissitude seems to have been estab-
 lished, for  the epidemic began to develop  itself very early, and
 before the expiration of July, had been propagated  widely  and
 fatally.   The  epidemic of 1818  scarcely deserves to be called so.
 For, although bilious fever did in some instances take place, and
 was the genuine product of the period, yet it was mild, sporadi-
 cal,  and the bare testimony of its annual return.  Such as it was,
 however, it commenced to declare itself even in spring, and, in a
 few  cases, terminated  in death.   The epidemic  of 1819 made its
 appearance under a distinct shape, in the latter part of June, and
 went on increasing in extent and destructiveness, until the frost
 came and ended it. I make these remarks in regard to the an-
 ticipated birth of  those  epidemics, because I shall place that cir-
 comstance among the  co-operating causes which have produced
 the disease of 1820, when I come particularly to discuss its origin.
 Throughout the months of June and July, the late  epidemic was
 bilious and remittent in its general complexion.   It was the ordi-
 nary malady of other seasons, featured with the wonted symptoms,
 and  pursuing  the  common course.  But there  was a grade and
 form more violent and deadly, assumed at first in solitary instances
 only, and always preserving some characteristic of alliance to the
 ruling type, which grew, step by step, in extent, and finally apread
 its dominion everywhere.   This terrific contour  of  the disease
 was  distinguished  by its  unabating  continuance,  by its  black
 emissions from the stomach, and  by its inflamed eye.  It was
 evidently the epidemic remittent, propelled  into this aggravated
 shape by the violence  and consequent intercurrence of paroxvsms.
 In the first place,  because the black  ejections from  the stomach,
 which were incident  to it, were  frequently attendant on  cases
 accompanied with  remissions.   Second, because in many instances
 where no remission could  be  distinguished, there was a total
 absence of black  evacuations, either from the stomach or lower
intestines.  Third, because the  majority of cases were connected,
in the first stage of their progress, with discharges of bile, which 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
119
 were sometimes  copious, although  afterward they  became sup-
 pressed entirely, as the disease rose to the summit of its strength.
 Fourth, because, in some cases, by the tendency of the attack, or
 by the imprudent administration of  acrimonious substances,  the
 remittent was excited into  the continued form,  and the character
 which was assumed,  iu the onset, became  finally obliterated.
 Fifth, because, iu  some cases,  which were genuinely continued
 until the force of the disease was in some measure exhausted, and
 the constitution beginning to triumph in a recovery, the remittent
 garb was gradually and eventually completely disclosed and estab-
 lished.   Sixth, because the inflamed vascular membrane  of  the
 stomach was the source of the  black ejections, and that inflam-
 mation was repeatedly ascertained, by  the  morbid  dissection, to
 exist with profuse secretions of bile, and without the production
 of  one particle of black  matter.   Seventh, because, in connection
 with this inflamed  state of the stomach, and abundant secretion
 before  death,  and  presence  of bile after death,  without any
 appearance of black matter,  there  was sometimes not  a mere
 remittent, but  the  exhibition of a perfect intermittent  form of
 fever, such  as is ordinarily witnessed in every season.  Eighth,
 because, it appeared, after death and dissection, in a case of remit-
 tent fever, that there was inflammation of the inner coat  of  the
 stomach, with small parcels  of black  matter upon its  surface,
 while the cavity of the stomach was filled with green bile, and  the
 duodenum  with  deep  yellow bile ;  thus evincing,  in the  most
 decisive manner,  the unity of  the bilious and  black vomit forms
 of  the epidemic.   Ninth, because, at the winding up of the season,
 the intermittent and remittent forms  of the  disease became more
 numerous, while  there was a corresponding  diminution  of the
 continued cases, which had been predominating.   This fact could
 only  be  explained  by the  general  mitigation of the epidemic,
 which the cool weather had effected, and which was the suitable
 result of a reduced state of the morbific causes.   Tenth, because,
 in the same family, and  under the same roof, all the varieties of
 intermittent, remittent,  and  contiuued fever,  were sometimes
 simultaneous.   In the family of Mr. T. V.  Grey, there was one
 servant affected with  common fever and ague,  another  with a
 severe remittent, and a  third with a continued fever, ending in
black vomit, at the same instant.  Is  it possible to  conceive that
there were three  distinct atmospherical sources of disease in this
narrow compass?  If the case of black  vomit  be sundered  from 
120               THE  EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.

the intermittent and  remittent cases, and ascribed  to a  separate
agent, then the intermittent and remittent must consequently be
sundered  from each other, and with equal  propriety, be  also
ascribed to separate  agents.  Eleventh, because, in  all epidemical
diseases, there are mild as well as mortal cases.  Now, the advo-
cates in general, for  the nosological distinction of the continued
form of fever, iu combination with black vomit, have neglected to
point out and define the mild cases which eventuate in the re-
storation of the patient.  I have yet to learn what they are.  For,
in the  season, which has just elapsed, there  seemed to be very
little difference.   The event was  almost universally  mortal, where
black matter was  ejected from the stomach.  Even  the plague of
Canstantinople  and Cairo does not destroy all.   The natural small
pox presses with a heavy hand on some, but, in others it is kind,
and does not even disturb the  tranquility of the general circula-
tion.  Influenza, in some cases, is nothing more than the slightest
catarrh; while,  in others, it engorges  the  lungs, and  prostrates
the strength, even to death.   As those  epidemics which  are  well
understood, seem to be governed according  to the principle of
variety, in force, and grade, and  features, none  is  positively and
inflexibly defined  by fixed  points and lines.   It is  not probable,
therefore,  independently of other considerations,  that  the  con-
tinued fever of  black vomit is subject to the same principle also ?
That it is not always fashioned by an unbending and deadly pat-
tern; but, in the same manner, varies its outline, and  sometimes
invades the  system  with  a part only of the ordinary violence?
This is rendered still more probable by its  correspondence with  a
general law, which governs the operations of the  human body.
There is not an active substance of the materia medica which  con-
stantly  preserves  an uniform influence  over  every constitution.
Habit,  predisposition and  internal peculiarities of structure, are
as various as the external figure.  Seldom are two frames suscep-
tible of similar movements, from the action of the same cause, and
nothing is more common than different depths of impression, not
only in different systems, but even in the same system, at different
junctures.  All medicines, all articles of food and drink, are em-
ployed in practice, under the control of this law.   All poisonous
remedies are subject to it; for it is as much a constituent part of
*-he physiological body, as any  of the vital  functions.  It  were
then indeed a strange circumstance, if a  poison, which  happens
to be diffused in the  atmosphere, a miasma of bogs  or foul heaps, 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
121
 should be made of such a flexible material as  to defeat the usual
 tendency of that law, and to adapt itself to all the differences of
 susceptibility, or arrangements of predisposition, in such manner
 as to produce always the same effect of grade and form.  There is
 an accommodating power in the body, which  gradually, but not
 promptly, and often unsuccessfully, tends to fit it to exigencies,
 and to the forces which are exercised by the agents which operate
 on it; but  there is no such convenient power of  compliance, in
 any degree, in agents to  the various states  of the body.  Their
 character is immutable, so that it is not possible for them to raise
 up the same morbid affections in every instance.  What, then, are
 the minor effects  of that  cause which produces continued fever
 and black  vomit, if they be not the  bilious remittent and inter-
 mittent forms of fevers ?  These  have been  the  only  forms of
 disease associated with them, and they have been the only obvious
 milder effects which it could have produced.
   The epidemic began then as mild and manageable  intermittent
 and remittent bilious fever.  In the course of its march, it became
 a remittent, more  severe and fatal;  at  another step, a  continued
 fever, most ungovernable  and destructive, at  first of short, but
 afterwards, in some  instances,  of  considerable duration;  and,
 finally, concluded with a relapse into the primary intermittent and
 remittent tvpes.  I have  said,  that, almost from the moment of
 its declaration, certain causes  were appareled in  the continued
 dress.   The first  which came under my notice, occurred on the
 26th of June, in Washington Ward, which is situated at the north-
 east point of the city.   There was some appearance of a periodical
 remission it this case, but it was not very distinct or well marked,
 and the patient died on the third day.  I have often seen examples,
 at a late period in other seasons,  of cases running thus rapidly to
 a close, and was contented with accounting for its early occurrence
 by some extraordinary  exposure or intemperance.  On the 14th
 July, a mechanic wps attacked with  continued  fever, in the same
 ward, and died on the fourth day, with  hemorrhages from the nose
 and bowels, with  a spongy state of the gums.   About this time,
 Mr. Patrick Stanton, who  occupied a store in  the neighborhood,
 was also malignantly and insidiously seized with fever, which ter-
 minated in black vomit and death, on  the 16th July.  This  was
 the first case,  I believe, in which this terrible symptom appeared.
  The  epidemic had hitherto prevailed, with as much extent and
mortality, in the western, as in the eastern flank of the city.  But, 
122
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
towards the latter part of this month, and the baginning of Au-
gust, it planted itself chiefly in Washington  and other  eastern
wards.  Its most prominent and fatal impression was felt there.
The strongest features of the disease were exhibited there, while
the ravages which had been made in Yamacraw, and the western
sections, were proportionally moderated.   The fact is worthy of
notice ; for, on examining  the  register of deaths, it is perceived
that, at this  period, when Washington Ward became the great
theatre of desolation, it was not the acquisition of a new disease,
on the back of an ordinary bilious remittent, which had occupied
the western, as well as the eastern districts of  the city, but an ap-
parent concentration of effect in  the eastern districts, which had
been divided between eastern and western districts.
  The explanation of this singular transition is to be found in the
character of the winds, and in the peculiar  localities of these
eastern departments, which will presently be rendered  sufficiently
obvious, by an inspection of the meteorological  diagram which I
have constructed.  The fact, however it may be accounted for or
solved, gives a correct warrant for the inference, that the cause
had been divided, and was  now condensed, in conformity with the
effect.   It was not a mere increase of the cause, but a concentra-
tion of it in one place ;  and thus leads to the conclusion that it
was general, and founded in some common constitution of the air
and circumstances of  the city.  The consequences of this vicissi-
tude, iu the distribution of the morbific  matter, were  suitable to
it.  The mortality and  devastation  soon  attracted  universal no-
tice, and appalled every man of consideration  for  his family or
friends.  The municipal authorities were specially convened to
deliberate on  measures for the  health of the city.  The Mayor
addressed a letter of lespect to the Medical Society, for informa-
tion of the grounds of  the peculiar  destructiveness  of disease in
Washington Ward and other eastern departments.   A committee
of the corporation was also appointed to make further inquiry
into the same subject; and finally, a Board of Health was consti-
tuted, to ascertain means  of preventing the  further  progress of
the disease, or to mitigate it, by removing whatever  might contri-
bute to produce it.  Notwithstanding  every  effort, however, the
epidemic continued its career in the  eastern wards, until death or
flight, in a  few weeks,  had divested them of inhabitants.   Tar
was burnt in the open squares and was recommended to be burnt,
also, in yards and dwellings.   Every practicable mode was em- 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
123
ployed to remove the filth of streets  and lots,  and to extend the
system  of purgation.  Committees of the Board of Health were
organized, to  make  frequent and regular visits of investigation
into every part of the city, and  those  committees did whatever
was in their power to do.  Still the epidemic rioted on, and con-
tinued to  propagate death and dismay.  Exertions were ineffi-
cient, because it  was impossible to reach either  the  general or
local root and source of the calamity.  It gradually penetrated
into all quarters of the city, except that part which is situated on
the  south common, and to the westward of the new Presbyterian
church.  But its greatest ravages were spread along the streets
and lanes, which were crowded with  old wood houses, in a state
of partial decadence,  were  badly ventilated,  and over-tenanted
with non-residents, or strangers  to the climate.   In such places,
the scene of sickness, misery, and ruin was awful, shocking, and
well fitted to inspire a melancholy sentiment of the shortness, un-
certainty, and insignificance of  life, and  to humble all that pride
and self-greatness which  is  incident  to health,  strength  and
pleasure.
  Beyond  the boundaries of the old  town, there was no example
of continued  fever or black vomit.    The ordinary intermittent
or remittent bilious fever were  the  prevailing forms of disease in
the  country,  and they corresponded,  in every way,  with  what
might be called the  sub-cases, or the intermittent and remittent
cases which  were contemporary with them  in the city.  There
seemed to be a  link  of association  between these, which leads
strongly to the deduction, that  the  same species of agent consti-
tuted the foundation of all the cases which were co-existing within
and without  the boundaries, notwithstanding every difference of
exterior  appearance.   The  continued  form of fever,  and the
symptom of black vomit, never  passed  the ancient and  well set-
tled positions of the city.  In the progress of the season,  that
form came to predominate, and  attained to such general supre-
macy as to constitute the common  features of disease.  An  epi-
demic was established, therefore, it may be admitted, under this
shape.  Was it specifically distinct from the intermittent and re-
mittent epidemic  of the  country?   Was its origin distinct, not
only in degree, but  chymically  and  in quality also ?  Did  they
come into actual contact at the precincts of the city, without tres-
passing on the soil and empire of each other ; so that, while one
was occupying an extensive adjacent country, the other was cir- 
IU
!fHE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
cumscribed and locked up within those precincts ?  The  country
was invested, for many miles, with an unsound and epidemic state
of the atmosphere.  The city was encompassed with it on every
side.  Was there a spell which repelled its further progress, or
warded off the access which  no natural obstacle  could have pre-
vented it from finding?   Is it not much more  probable—nay, is
it 'not  certain, that it did not only  envelope the city, but pene-
trated also into  every part of it—that it carried the same infec-
tion along  with  it into  streets, lanes, houses and  lots, and, being
unchanged, scattered  its baneful effects in the same manner as it
had done in the country ?  Tnis was an inevitable  consequence,
which there was nothing to obviate.  There was no  barrier to the
inroad of the winds, and  there was no cleansing  power  which
could wash away the  unwholesome materials which they carried.
Could they be present, then, and inactive ?  What  circumstances
of the city was there  possible, which could have so fortified the
systems of men, as to make them invulnerable to that fell agent,
which  was  holding strong  influence everywhere  else ?  What
power was there which could so  neutralize it, as  to defeat it in
that way ?  I know of none.  It was  there ; and that it was inert,
while there, is inconceivable.   It must have operated on the body
with as much certainty, as we have  in  the operation  of arsenic,
under every vicissitude of place—with as much  certainty as  we
have in the competence of a cause to produce an effect, which has
been uniformly produced by it before.  Whatever, then, that effect
was, it was at least founded, in some degree, in the general morbi-
fic constitution of the air, which was suspended  over the town and
country.  That constitution of air must at least have contributed
largely to produce it; and, indeed, if there be any truth  in  the
technical rules which are commonly  taught, in  regard  to the suc-
cession of  epidemic diseases, and the exclusive  sovereignty of one
only at the same time, it must have acted, not only  an  important,
but  a chief  part.  It must  have impressed its character  on all
cases, and must have turned to its own tendencies, whatever of
impurities, from local sources, might have mingled and associated
with it.  It must, in  fact, have formed the basis of one general
disease, more violent and destructive in certain places, according
to the greater abundance of local circumstances to  aggravate and
promote it—more pestilential in one situation than  another, in
consequence  of  greater fruitfulness in the furnishing  of those
pernicious substances, or miasmata, which are probably the pro- 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
125
duct of putrid collections or marsh fermentations.  I  can easily
imagine a  compass of twenty miles, diversified in such a way as
to exhibit  a  pond in  one place, a simple quagmire in another,
a bog in another, with all the complex festerings of city filth ; a
fertile soil  in another,  without any standing waters, but rich with
vegetables  in decay, and dead insects ; a great assemblage of
rotten corn, coffee, beef, or fish,  in another ; an immense mass of
wood, crumbling by  putrefaction, in another ; a great number of
wooden houses, crowded upon each  other, and inhabited by a
species of  tenantry, careless, by poverty and habit,  of the  fou]
aggregations which take place around them, in another; and then
I can  imagine  that  an epidemic, produced by the operation of
heat and humid air upon all this surface, to be identically and
specifically the  same, founded in the  same general principle of
putrid decomposition  over all its parts, and  diversified with
various degrees  of severity, according to this enumeration  of cir-
cumstances.  Such consequences  would  inevitably result from
such  causes.  A fever, of  different  grades and features,  but
entirely of the  same species, would be thus wrought into exis-
tence.   An intermittent  would form  the general  grade   in one
place—a  remittent  in another—an  active continued fever in
another—a fever attended  with prostration of all the energiess
in another—and, in  another, with hemorrhages and perverted
secretions.  From such a multiform  origin, there could  not be
any  unitv  in the  symptoms or the degree, although  the remote
and  the proximate  cause might be  perfectly  uniform.   These
must be subject to  change, according to the  diminished or ac-
cumulated forces  which  produce them.   And thus  it happens,
that epidemics,  which unquestionably arise from the  same local
circumstances,  assume such various  types, in different seasons.
At one time, as in the  summer and autumn of 1817, the muscular
coat of the stomach is irritable, while  the internal coat indicates
very little disorder.   At  another, as in 1819, the stomach evinces
a high degree of insensibility,  so as to bear without  nausea, the
largest doses of medicine.  At  another,  as in 1820, the internal
coat is the great seat of action,  while the  muscular coat is com-
partively  passed by  and untouched.   What  then?   Shall  we
attribute all the varieties of summer and autumnal fever  to dif-
ferent agents?  Shall we have a  new  and distinct species  for
every year ?  If such  a principle of dividing diseases were once
admitted, the catalogue would be unbounded, and we should have 
126
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
as many  fall epidemics as there are annual periods of sickness.
For, although an  epidemic has occurred in this  city, since  my
residence  in it, in connection  with  every  return of the warm
months, I have not witnessed  two which were parallel with one
another, at every point.   However nearly they have approximated
in outward character, there has always been left some chasm in
the similitude, or some inequality in the morbid excitement.   But
it would not merely fend to the  indefinite multiplication  of gen-
eral  diseases.  By a parity of reasoning, and by  pushing such a
method of pathology a little further, it would become correct, and
equally consistent to divide each of those general diseases into as
many  minute species as there  might be different  cases.   For
cases, during the prevalence  of a general disease, are as variant
from each other, in a multitude of instances, as the general dis-
eases themselves.   They are  so much modified  by moral  and
physical circumstances—by the age or progress of  the epidemic
season, that very often they take on peculiar dresses, and  present
themselves to the spectator under novel and unsettled  shapes.
At one point of  the  city,  a  drunkard dies of  black vomit; at
another, an abstemious man dies of fever, combined with dysen-
tery ; at another, a man of  mental uneasiness dies  with inflamma-
tion  of the brain ; and at another, a painter dies with fever,
united to palsy of the limbs.  In the outset, the common tyoe may
be remittent ; in the  middle  of the season, it may  become con-
tinued, with a critical duration of six days; and at  the conclusion,
that  duration may  be spun on to twenty days, and the  skin ac-
quire a deep yellow complexion.  Thus, varieties  are multiplied,
according to accidents, predispositions  and  the  epidemic power.
Is it scientific to  consider these cases as so many distinct dis-
eases ?  It would  lead to confusion and embarrassment,  without
effecting one useful purpose.   How, then, are  epidemics to  be
distinguished, and  what mode is to be pursued, to ascertain the
cases which do or do not  belong to them  ?  It  is evident that
symptoms and external signs  are too fluctuating and mutable to
be relied on.  It is evident  that, to receive their authority,  is at
once to swell the list of diseases beyond all bounds.  The saga-
city  of the most  learned is baffled by  them, and practical physi-
cians acknowledge their insufficiency, by the constant references
which  they make to other sources of  information.  The first
process of the mind, in regard to an epidemic, as to ascertain its
existence ; and this is done, not  so much by observing, in every 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
127
 case, an unvarying uniformity of shape and feature, as by observ-
 ing that many persons are seized with disease at the same time.
 The pneumonic  fever,  which  prevailed in  many parts  of  the
 United States a few years ago, sometimes affected the head with
 a phrenitis, while the  pneumonic system entirely escaped ; and
 yet,  such cases were ascribed to the  common  cause, as well as
 those which had given origin to its denomination.  After coming,
 in this manner, to a knowledge of the positive prevalence of  an
 epidemic, the next step is to find out its cause, not so much for the
 purpose of learning the philosophical nature, as of ascertaining
 the character of the disease which  it has kindled.  It is for the
 purpose  of comprehending the grade and seat of  the disease,  by
 some former experience, and thus attaining to the true method of
 treating it.  In this point of view, the cause bears no relation to
 exterior appearances, and an acquaintance with it cannot be con-
 sidered, except with great uncertainty, as conducting to an acquain-
 tance  with  them.  They  are  to  be considered as its casual and
 irregular products, not immediately, but mediately,  through the
 proximate cause which it  establishes.   They  are really the direct
 effects of the proximate cause, by  the sympathy  of parts ; and
 nothing can  be more unsystematic than  the operations of this
 unintelligible principle.
   There is a general analogy between  the conformation of one
 body  and another, which, in a considerable number of  the cases
 of an epidemic, tends  to develop some uniform symptoms.  But
 that analogy is not perfect enough, and, even  if it were perfect, is
 not sufficient to counteract the  accidents of  predisposition  and
 the sympathies, so as to demonstrate regular appearances.  Hence,
 it seems  that the symptoms of  an epidemic are too vague and
 unsteady  to constitute the  foundation of its pathological distinc-
 tion.   They are not the fixed outlines which are always exhibited
 to denote and distinguish it.  They have  their place, and con-
 tribute to an understanding of the treatment of diseases:   Thus
 far they are useful and indispensable, but to use  them for the pur-
 pose of systematic arrangement is to found an edifice on a sand
 bank, which the very next  wind is to  scatter and carry  away.
 When  cases, then, differ in their external manifestations it is not
 reasonable to conclude that they differ in fact, and in their secret
 character also.  When the eye is inflamed in one instance,  is yel-
low in another, is  clear in  another;  when the skin is at one time
purple,  at another deeply tinged with bile, and at another fair and
      9 
128
THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.
 ruddy as nature ; when the stomach disgorges a black fluid at one
 moment, a yellow fluid at another, and no fluid  whatever at an-
 other, it does not follow that any original diversity must  necessa-
 rily exist among the morbid affections on which they are bottomed.
 Where, then, are the points of specific difference between the fever
 of  the city and that of the circumjacent country?  Since the doc-
 trine of  symptoms is incapable of opening a way to a knowledge
 of  them, what other resources have the advocates of that differ-
 ence ?  I know of  none.  The epidemic causes are of less  avail
 than the doctrine   of symptoms.   What are those causes in the
 country ?  The decomposition of various substances.  What are
 they in the city ?  The decomposition of substances again.  The
■ result of that decomposition we call miasma, which we understand
 only by its effects and by its connection with  the  dissolution of
 animal and  vegetable matter under  the  influence of heat and
 moisture.  It is an undivided cause, and has more power  at one
 time, and in one  place, than another, only by its quantity and
 degrees of condensation.  If, therefore, any weight be allowed to
 the cause, the unity  of the epidemic would be at once established.
 Notwithstanding the intermittent  of  the south common, which
 was the general grade and form in that place—the  active remit-
 tent at Mr. John Eppinger's farm, five miles from town, the  more
 prostrating remittent at White Bluff, nine miles distant, and the
 continued fever of  the city—still the epidemic would be  univer-
 versally  the  same in regard to its real and not its apparent char-
 acter.
   But it is  frequently observed, that the mortality has been un-
 precedented  in the  city—that  so much black  vomit  has  never
 occurred before, and in short, that the disease has no likeness to
 former epidemics.   These have been admitted by some,  as  a suf-
 ficient warrant for believing it to be new and peculiar, and  unex-
 ampled.  The mortality  has indeed been unprecedented ; but, if
 a pathological distinction is to be founded on different degrees of
 mortality, there would be no end to such distinctions ; it is  of all
 modes the most preposterous.   I  recollect once to have heard a
 physician  say, that  an  ulcer, which  another  had pronounced
 to  be cancerous, was not  a cancer, because it healed  and the
 patient  got  well.   A  cancer, according to his surgery,  was an
 ulcer, which  always ended in the destruction of  the subject of it.
 There is much of this cancerous philosophy in those who found
 their  pathological  dogmas on the mere issue of cases, and  not a 
report by William r. waring.
129
little of it, even  in  those  who  found them on extreme severity
and forms.  It is true, also, that there has been an uncommon
abundance of  black  vomit.  This  symptom has prevailed  more
generally and extensively, in the character of the late epidemic,
than in any other which has gone before.  But it is not a new
symptom.   Scarcely a season has passed in which it has not made
its appearance.  In 1817, the number of cases was considerable,
and Dr. Maxwell,  who has been an attending surgeon at the City
Hospital, has informed me, that, for thirteen years,  he has  con-
stantly met with  occasional occurrences  of  this symptom.  It
seems to be the highest and most inflammatory grade  of the pe-
riodical fever, which  requires the  greatest virulence and plenti-
tude of the usual causes, to produce it.   It seems to be an ex-
acerbation of a mere  irritation  of the  stomach  into the state of
rapid  inflammation, which an increase  of the causes of that irri-
tation is fully adequate to accomplish.   But, with regard to the
origin  of the symptom of black vomit, I shall speak more par-
ticularly, when I come to discuss the pathology of the epidemic.
Hitherto, however, it  has almost invariably happened, that cases
of fever, distinguished by black vomit, have occurred among for-
eigners, or persons estranged from  the climate.  What was  com-
mon  remittent  in  the  native, in the strangers seemed to become
continued, and then assumed this  fatal symptom.  But the re-
mittent was nevertheless a high  state of fever, and not only fre-
quently attacked, but very often, either  broke down the constitu-
tion, or was mortal.  And, notwithstanding the  opinions  enter-
tained by  some, in regard to the unusual destruction among the
native residents, by the epidemic in 1820, it is certainly far from
being new.  It is not now, surely, that we have to learn, that the
periodical  fevers of this city have  been always fatal, in a greater
or less  degree, to  its  permanent inhabitants ; and that, although
black vomiting has not been  a conspicious accompaniment of the
disease in former  seasons, the devastation, from rapid and un-
controllable remittents, was extensive and melancholy.   To speak
therefore, of the novelty of the fever, in consequence of the ex-
tent of its violence, and the redundance of one symptom, appears
to be  unreasonable,  or founded in a want of more general and
accurate information.
  I  have now  arrived at that part of  the subject of this report,
which relates particularly to the causes of the epidemic, and more
especially to the causes of its  aggravated character in the city.  In 
130
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
the first place, I shall describe the weather which preceded and
was contemporaneous with it; in the second place, the peculiar
circumstances of the city itself; and,  last of all, I shall  examine
the reasons which have induced a few to attribute our troubles to
the dry culture, and to importation.  I  hope that I shall be able
to make it appear, that in these are to be found ample causes for
the production of the severest grades  of fever, without resorting
to additional whimsical, and groundless suppositions.  By refer-
ring to the register of the heat, for the month of February, it will
be  perceived,  that,  even in that month, the thermometer rose to
an extraordinary height—on one day, to 35  degrees;  which ex-
ceeds  the medial mid-day heat  for the month of August.  The
whole  medial heat,  at mid-day,  was  73  degrees.  In  March,
the weather became cooler ; but  the thermometer rose to 80 de-
grees at inid-day, and the  medial heat for the month, was 68 de-
grees.   In April, the medial heat at mid-day, was  77 degrees, and
the thermometer rose as high as 92 degrees.   May was somewhat
cooler  than April;  but the medial heat at mid-day, was not less
then 75, and the common  heat increased to 90 degrees.  From
this  time,  the heats  of summer  were established,  and  did not
begin to abate until the approach  of September.   But the follow-
ing table will exhibit in  a  more lucid manner, the early and pre-
mature invasion of the summer temperatures,  and the gradual,
though not entirely  uniform,  ascent  of the mercury after the
month of January.
THE MEDIAL AND GREATEST COMMON  HEAT AT MID-DAY, IN THE SHADE.
	Feb.	Mar.	April.	May.	June.	July.	Aug.	Sept.	Oct.	Nov.
	73	68	77	75	81	85	82	78	67	65
										
	85	80	92	90	92	96	90	85	85	75
										
  From this it appears, not only that the summer commenced in
April, and converted the usual temperature of the spring into the
hot weather of that season, but that even through the months of
February and March, an  uncommon  warmth had  been infused
into the climate.   A lady, who has always been in the habit of
taking the cold both in summer, informed me that she began, this
year, in March, as a matter of comfort, her system  of cold bath-
ing.  The whole winter, indeed, of 1819-20, was remarkably mild,
and did not wear the  character  which was suited  to it.  Beside
this unsalutary substitution of the genial spring, by  heating suns,
there  were considerable falls of rain.   In  the  course  of  March, 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
131
 April, and May, there was a deposit of nine inches of  water.  So
 that, what is denominated the rainy season, instead of making its
 entrance along with  the  summer months, as it commonly does,
 and  as  it does  usually in years which are only of moderate in-
 clemency, anticipated this  period  for ninety days.  In the two
 months  of  June  and July, the quantity of rain  became  more
 abundant, and as many inches were laid as in the three preced-
 ing months.  Hitherto,  the rains had been divided by consider-
 able intervals, but, on the 2d of August, they sat in, and continued
 incessantly for  twelve days,  and at the close of the month, the
 enormous  depth of thirteen  inches of water had fallen.  It was
 during this spell of twelve days' rain, that the epidemic grew so
 destructive in Washington Ward, and  cited  the  public  alarm.
 This fact is very strong, in proof of its local origin and connection
 with excessive moisture.  In September, there was a remission of the
 rains; but on the first of October, seven inches and a half of water
 fell in a  single shower; and during the months of September, Octo-
 ber, and November, there were  fifteen inches of water deposited.
 Throughout  the  greater part of  this time, the  atmosphere was
 loaded with vapor, and  was very oppressive.  Notwithstanding
 all this  long term of  cloudy skies and heavy rains, there was
 almost a total absence of the electrical fluid.  And, although I
 am unwilling to admit that this  fluid is possessed of any direct
 agency in  the preservation of  health,  or that it operates in its
 general diffusion  throughout the atmosphere on the  system, in
 any efficient or important  manner, I  think it exercises a useful
 function  in sustaining the  wholesome  qualities of the air, by
 the condensation  and removal  of vapor.  When there is much
 moisture, this fluid is always inconsiderable ;  but it  is always
 abundant, when there is little moisture; and when this fact is con-
 nected with the refreshing  character of rains, which are accom-
 panied with much thunder and lightning, together with the sultri-
 ness and oppressive tendency of those which are not thus charac-
 terized, it  becomes probable  that they  serve to assist in the for-
 mation of clouds, and to desiccate the  atmosphere to a proper
 state for respiration.   The  chemistry of rain is not perfectly un-
 derstood.  The production and  accumulation of clouds are yet to
 be accounted for.  Is it  possible for positive and  negative elec-
 tricities,  in  the  first  place, to give origin to vapors, from the ele-
 mentary  gases, and then to  attract them into masses?   I have
remarked,  that  sometimes  the  rain  poured in greater torrents 
132
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
 after a severe flash of lightning.  Whether the electrical fluid was
 deficient, in consequence of  redundant moisture, or moisture was
 redundant in consequence of the deficiency of the electrical fluid,
 it is, at all events, a strong testimonial of the extreme dampness
 which  pervaded the atmosphere, throughout the season.  Its un-
 common absence, if produced by dampness, affords the strongest
 confirmation of the uncommon extent of that dampness.  After
 vapors are  taken from the earth into the  atmosphere  they are
 either decomposed or aggregated, by a power which does not ap-
 pear to be known.   If,  by any means, that be withdrawn, then it
 is obvious, that neither  the  decomposition nor aggregation can
 take place, and an excess of  atmospherical  moisture must ensue.
 It was owing,  perhaps,  to  this circumstance, whether it  arose
 from a sparse  state of the electrical fluid or not, that a constant
 sense of great  oppression was produced by the heaviness and
 want of elasticity in the air.   Profuse  exhalations were inces-
 santly  going on, and the falls of rain were considerable ; but the
 formation  of rain did not appear to equal the exhalations, and  to
 remove the excess of moisture  which they produced.  These were
 the general  causes  of the epidemic, which  were present with  it,
 in its whole  extent, over town and country.   They were the com-
 mon foundation of the miasma which  engendered it.  In regard
 to the city, however, there are  many peculiar circumstances, not
 only because of its internal condition, but of its remarkable ele-
 vation, and exposure to the most concentrated operation of  these
general causes.  Standing on a lofty bluff, and being entirely de-
fenseless against the influence of extensive marshes on every side,
 except  a point to the south, it  affords  an intercepting barrier and
lodgment for the abundant fogs which are constanaly raised from
 them.  Not  a wind comes—not a breeze blows from a north, east,
 or west direction,   which is not laden with moisture to be de-
posited and  retained by the city.  Along the channel of the river,
to the east and northeast, and to the west and southwest, the fogs
 and damps are raised by  the winds to be condensed upon the high
plateau of the  town.  Especially is this the case on the east and
 northeast, whence the winds bring their vapors loaded with mias-
mata to poison the atmosphere of Washington Ward.
  It is interesting to compare  the  years 1818-19 and '20 as re-
gards the relative amounts of rainfall, calms, winds, and electrici-
ty.  From such accumulated  data I  have been enabled to con-
dense the following  table of conclusions, averaging the number  of
days in each month for each series of  observations : 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
133
	FROM MAY UNTIL DECEMBER.				
	N., andN. E. Winds.	Rains.	Calm.		Electricity.
1818 Healthy.........	20	25 37		33 34	29
					
1819 Sickly...........	25				17
1820 Very Sickly.....	24	40	20		5
   This is an interesting epitome of the weather, and exhibits, in
 a strong light, the great connection which subsists between these
 natural phenomena  and the degree of disease.   The difference in
 the winds is not so remarkable as in the rain and electrical fluid.
 But there is still a difference of some magnitude; and when the
 circumstances of the atmosphere are  included in  the calculation,
 it becomes very important.  The quantity of  moisture being very
 minute in 1818, the winds could not act a prominent part; but,
 when  that quantity was advanced eo considerably as in 1819 and
 1820, their influence rose immediately into the most serious conse-
 quences.  They  served to  embank  it on our lands, and particu-
 larly at frontier situations.   Hence it  happened, that such a pecu-
 liar and great accumulation took place in Washington Ward, and
 other places to the east of  the town.  Mr. Grey, whose residence
 was  in that ward, informed me, that after having removed into the
 Baptist Church  square, he felt as if he had been  transported to
 New York.  The deposit of dew in the evening was so profuse, as
 to drench the cover of my  gig in a  short  time, while  engaged in
 visits of business there.  None but medical  men, who  make the
 daily circuit of the  city, appear to be  thoroughly aware of this
 fact, and  the consequent  various  degrees of insalubrity, which
 appertain  to  the different departments.  This  moisture, which
 steeped the air of Washington  Ward in such excess, was also, in
 more  or  less extraordinary profusion  everywhere.   The houses
 became damp and articles which were even locked in drawers or
 trunks grew mouldy and  rotted.  It penetrated into every cre-
 vice  and private recess, however remote or protected.  This unto-
 ward circumstance of extreme general moisture  was still more
 aggravated by the shrubbery of unpruned trees, which are thickly
 studded along the  streets  and  squares.  The shade  which  they
 afforded  shielded the heavy dews that fell in the night from the
 dispersing power of the sun during  the  day ; and, in  this way,
 sustained a constant soaked condition of everything that was not
impenetrable to water.  It will be perceived, by a reference  to
Raffle's History of the East Indies, that the same observation is 
134
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
 made in regard to large and umbrageous trees in Batavia.   They
 are enumerated among the causes of sickness in that place, by the
 protection which they give to the foul vapors which are vomited
 up by the neighboring  marshes and canals and deposited in the
 city.  Some defence against the influence of the sun is necessary,
 in a situation where it beams so intensely as it does in Savannah,
 during  the summer.  It would, therefore, be proper to preserve
 the trees, and to lop off all their great branches, so as to admit a
 free circulation of air.   In very dry seasons, as that of 1818, their
 utmost  luxuriance would not only be delightful, but innocent.  In
 rainy and wet seasons, however, which are very frequent in a lati-
 tude  bordering on  the torrid zone, it would, on the contrary, be
 obviously productive of mischief, by  fostering the  seeds of dis-
 ease, in accordance with the fact of the present year.   Such an
 abundant accumulation of  the fogs, and  miasmata of the swamps,
 within the city, from the local  causes of situation,  the  trees and
 the winds, was of itself an evil of no common  extent.  It was a
 concentration of the general epidemic composition of the atmos-
 phere, and sufficiently calculated to produce a  more violent and
 unmanageable grade of fever, than  that which commonly  pre-
 vailed.   But, besides these  superficial causes of drawing together
 and heaping up the product of  the marshes, there seems to be an
 attractive power, in  lofty places, over clouds and  vapors, which
 was calculated to augment it.  Baron Humboldt has made  this
 remark  in regard to the Peak Teneriffe, without accounting  for
 the phenomenon.  There can  be no doubt, however, of such a
 power and of its extensive influence in adding to the insalubrity
 of all such places as fall into the vicinity of low grounds. It ren-
 ders them even more intolerable than the low grounds themselves.
 The fact is  well and generally known, and this cause  very well
 explains it.   The fever of  Savannah  has always exhibited more
 severity and malignant excitement than that which prevails in the
 country  which embraces it ; and so, also, does the  fever in all
 situations under similar circumstances.
  Thus  inundated with moisture, it is not a matter of surprise
 that wooden houses should  go into a state of decay ;  that even the
 furniture which  they contain  and  the filth or offal that was col-
lected within or about them should enter upon the  process of pu-
trefaction.  If vegetable decomposition  be a source of miasmata,
then there  cannot be a more prolific cause of disease than the
great  number of old buildings of this kind.   Every man who ob- 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
135
 serves must have perceived that there is always over their surface
 a thick stratum, which is undergoing, or has already undergone, a
 dissolution.   In a  wet and warm season this  operation is rapid
 and  conspicuous, and  even comes  under the  cognizance of  the
 smell.  I think it exercises a considerable agency in the unwhole-
 some effect of our  summers.  Dr. Rush  has said that, in the yel-
 low fever of  1793, in Philadelphia, the  greatest mortality took
 place in wooden houses ; and it is certainly very remarkable that
 the newly erected part of this city was  almost exempt from  the
 disease of the last season.  Might it not be owing, in some meas-
 ure, to the more general use of brick in  the construction of their
 houses, that the mortality of fever  has  been  diminished in our
 Northern cities ?  And might  it not have been a good deal  in
 consequence of the greater abandonment of wooden materials,
 that  London has been exempt  from the plague since the fire of
 1656 ?  This is a subject  well worthy of the serious  attention of
 the corporation.
   In addition to this great mass  of  vegetable  decadence in our
 very  bosoms, there  was an unusual accumulation of various per-
 nicious matters, still more formidable, perhaps.  These  were
 extremely  and inordinately abundant, from the mixed, imprudent
 and destitute population which have flocked among us from every
 part of the civilized world. Whatever  could  have contributed,
 from ignorance of the climate, from poverty or neglect, to increase
 and to add to  them was done.   Since the conclusion of the late
 war the periodical epidemic, which has uniformly prevailed more
 or less iu Savannah, seems to have  been augmented in  the  vio-
 lence  of  its character.   The poverty and distress which  have
 arisen from the superfluous population of Europe, and particularly
 of  the English  dominions,  compelled great numbers, after that
 period, to emigrate to the United States.  That poverty, distress
 and emigration  were still  further advanced when the general
 peace took place.  The first enterprises of these unfortunate  for-
 eigners were made at the  North;  but finding that the rewards  for
 labor were small,  and that the  inducements  presented in the
 Southern cities were stronger, they launched a second time on the
 sea of adventure, and came in crowds to Southern ports.  In con-
 sequence of this great accession of strangers, without acquaint-
 ance with that kind of economy of living which is adapted to  an
unwholesome latitude; without money and without conveniences;
destitute of  proper  clothing,  food or  bedding;  gathering  in 
136
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
throngs  of  fifteen  or  twenty in narrow wooden buildings with
small yards; without caution, and without that considerate indus-
try which leads to the prompt removal of the daily  products of
filth which drop from their immediate persons, a source of  pesti-
lence has been established in addition to that which has ordinarily
existed.  If, in the most salubrious climes, a destructive disease
has been engendered by the concomitant circumstances of  pov-
erty, it  cannot be  a cause for wonder that those circumstances,
under the operation of  heat and moisture, should give birth  to
deadly and uncontrollable fevers.   I have already said that 1817
was the most severe that had ever been experienced in  Savannah,
and was  attended with  a greater number of cases of  black vomit.
In the course of the summer of  1819 fifty Irish emigrants arrived
in the same ship, not one of whom survived till  the  frost.  The
year of  1820 has been tinged with a deeper and more melancholy
gloom.   Our older inhabitants look back and tell us that these
are not  former  times.   Then the fever was remittent, and analo-
gous to that which now prevails  outside the  bounds  of the  city.
Then there were deaths, but recoveries were  not uncommon, and
cases of the continued forms of fever were extremely rare.  But I
say that then  the  population had not advanced in growth more
rapidly than the city; the number  of  the destitute and laboring
had not been pressed into  that narrow compass which was erected
originally for the convenience of a few.  Then the common labor
was altogether done by the negroes, and white laborers collected
in crowds in small houses  were unknown.  Then the population
was thin, resident and composed of natives, or permanent inhabi-
tants, whose constitutions, manners and customs, modes of living
and  comforts, fitted them, in the best way, to perceive  the means
of health and  to  preserve it.   All  this has been changed, and
everything has been introduced which can render a spot unfriendly
to the human constitution.   All cities are esteemed to be more or
less unsalutary.  The open and unobstructed air of the country;
its freedom from the  noisome   collections which are incident to
people congregated  into crowds,  is  much more  congenial to the
soundness  and vigor of  the frame.   This observation is an old
one, and  is applicable to those which bring their population into
the smallest compass, or  to  those  parts of cities in which great
numbers are forced  by poverty  into  the narrowest   space.   The
less the character of the country  is  preserved, and the more nearly
men and residences  are  made to approach one another, the greater 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
137
 is the suffering of the system and the more is  curtailed from the
 term of life.  All sorts of putrid matter become accumulated and
 incorporated with the very soil, and, instead of pure sand or earth,
 which may have  originally constituted the surface of the ground,
 species of compost is formed  and an active fermentation is taken
 on whenever there is heat and moisture enough to produce it.
 This state of soil is insensibly brought, in the progress of time, to
 contain the utmost  abundance of putrefiable materials, and, of
 course, to engender great quantities of poisonous gas, which com-
 pact buildings and walls do  not permit to be dissipated.  Hence
 it is that, all other  circumstances being equal, large  cities are
 more  hostile to  health than  villages,  and  are found to  have
 advanced, where their progress can  be traced, from one step of
 insalubrity to another until, from having been visited by moderate
 diseases, they become the seat of typhus  fever, yellow fever and
 the  plague,  acording  to  the  climate  in which they happen  to be
 located.  This progress has been very remarkable in many of the
 cities of the United States, and very well accounts for the grades
 of fever to which they have been such frequent victims in latter
 years.  Such an  event was to be expected from their growth in a
 climate so subject to heavy rains and epidemic constitutions of the
 air.   It ought not, then, to be matter of wonder that in Savannah
 there should be an  augmentation of violence in the diseases which
 visit it in proportion of its population since it has only recently
 arrived to that  point  which  was attained some years before by
 New York, Philadelphia and Charleston.   It  evinces aggrandize-
 ment and  increased  importance, but  at  the same  time the coun-
 terbalancing evils of greater force in disease and more inhospitality
 of climate.  There  have  been,  consequently, scenes of misery,
 wretchedness, filth and want, from these circumstances, in 1819-20,
 which are  very extraordinary  notwithstanding, for a  country so
 rich  in the facilities of subsistence, and which  have  a parallel only
 in the plagues of the world.
  There is another cause of the disease which belongs to the city,
 and is entirelv recent also.  The  fire of  January exposed to the
 operation of the sun  and rain a great number of  vaults and cel-
lars  which co-operated with other local impurities  and  added to
the insalubrity of the climate.   But they have not constituted the
basis of the extreme  severity of the  epidemic as some had very
erroneously imagined,  since the first cases  of black  vomit  and
continued  fever  occurred at  a  considerable  distance from  the 
138
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
situation of the fire, and, in some instances, among persons whose
occupation and residence were seated in such manner as to bring
them very seldom within its neighborhood.  The principal mor-
tality was for some time confined to the eastern wards, so that the
Mayor was, at one moment, induced to speak of the propriety of
drawing a cordon around that portion of the city and obstructing
its intercourse with  the rest.  If the origin of the disease had been
founded, even chiefly, in the consequences of the fire, it must cer-
tainly  have  broken out first and most  destructively  in the lots
which  immediately  surround them.  I am disposed, however, to
attribute  still, some share of the morbid effect to the vaults and
cellars  and  the miasmata which  must have  arisen  from them,
remarking at the same time that they did not  act, and could not
have acted, from their situation and condition, that very powerful
part which some have ascribed to them.
  The  epidemic was not  the result of  one  source  merely, but
many.  It arose from all the local and general sources which have
been enumerated.  And  when all  these  have been brought  into
view—when they are combined and made to operate  together in
one point, the effects of that operation  cannot be otherwise than
uncommonly efficient when  all  the local sources  of miasmata,
which  are somewhat new  and unexperienced  in this city, are
joined to the usual and prolific sources  afforded by the marshes
which surround us—when they are joined to the general epidemic
agent, which was pervading the whole country for many leagues.
and which was poured in by the winds in such abundance—when
it is considered that the general cause was itself severe and fatal,
it becomes, at least probable that a compound so deleterious was
fully competent to produce  a malady greater than  any other of
former years.
  It becomes an adequate  cause for the superior virulence of the
epidemic within the borders of the town, and satisfactorily accounts
for it.   Whether it be or not an adequate cause, it is  yet unques-
tionable that the cause  of the general disease was founded in the
local atmosphere.  The general affection was drawn from general
circumstances, and the local affection from a composition of gen-
eral and local circumstances.  Such appears to be the  most prob-
able origin of  the epidemic of 1820.  But since it has been attri-
buted by  one  class  of persons to the imperfect state of the dry
culture, by  another to  importation  from the West  Indies,  and
by  another to importation from  the coast of Africa,  it becomes 
report By wilLiaM r. WarIng.
139
 proper, not because these sources are reasonable or much accred-
 ited  by  this community, to meet and  refute such  groundless
 imaginations.  With regard to the dry culture, it is to be observed
 that this system has  been only partially carried into operation,
 and at best  comprehends but  a small  portion of  the  swamp
 lands which more  or  less extend their influence to the city.  I
 have myself  always  viewed  the  original purchase  as the com-
 mencement of an extensive plan of redeeming from pollution all
 these lands in the  course of time, and as contributing, as far as
 it went, to reduce the unwholesomeness of the climate.  I have
 never been so sanguine, nor have any of the intelligent supporters
 of the system of dry  culture  been so visionary as to  anticipate
 more  than an incomplete benefit from its present  extent.  A
 benefit, even such as  it was calculated to procure, was, however,
 to be considered worth  possessing, and was still more esteemed
 because it was contemplated as laying the ground-work of further
 benefits.   It is impossible for any  man who has any acquaintance
 with the former and present condition of these lands to feel other
 than the utmost  confidence in the principles of that system.  If
 dry soils have more salubrity than mud flats and quagmires, then
 it cannot be doubted, on an inspection of the grounds which have
 been  properly managed, that, so far from  having become more
 fitted  to create  disease, they have very  much approximated to
 the  innocuous circumstances of  high situations ;  and were it
 practicable to insulate them or defend them against the influences
 of the rice fields in the vicinity, I verily believe that as much
 health might be enjoyed upon them as upon any of the cotton or
 corn plantations in the lower country.  What is there to prevent
 it ?  They can be as easily drained and can be preserved as free
 from collections of  water.  In relation to their present state the
 board  has been  already instructed by their inspector, whose in-
 vestigations have been more minute than my own.  But so far as
 I have been able  to inform myself, it appears that, in some places,
 the ditches and canals have not been assiduously cleared of ob-
 stacles to the  afflux of water, yet those ditches  and canals are not
in a more objectionable state than  the margin of the river, or
those ditches and canals on cultivated rice lands, where instances
of black vomit  are unknown.  Such lands are very  abundant
along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, and  yet I believe
an instance of yellow fever, or what is  vulgarly called  so, has
seldom or never  occurred.   I was born on a rice plantation, and 
140
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
have spent a greater part of my early life in the midst of the cul-
tivation  of that plant without having  on my mind the remem-
brance of a single instance.  It seems to be totally the disease of
uncleansed places or cities, conditioned  very similarly to the man-
ner in which I have represented this to  have been, or operated
upon by the same abstract  cause.  Generally the proprietors have
not been negligent of the terms of their contracts, and  these
grounds, in  many places, have  been  beautifully managed in the
culture  of corn, cotton, and  the  grasses.  If it were  practicable
to rescue all  the adjacent swamps  in  the same degree, and  to
place them  in a dry condition also, the great advantages  that
would result can hardly be a  matter  of doubt.
  It could not justly have been  expected that a  surface, chiefly
tilled and carpeted in the vegetable growth of elevated places,
occasionally intersected with a canal containing some stagnant
water, but generally destitute of moisture as any other rich com-
position of earth, one hundred  and  fifty miles in the up-country,
should form an apparatus more fruitful  in the furnishing of im-
pure gases, than that  same surface  in  its rice field state of bog
and ravine.   In point of fact, it appears that the negroes inhabit-
ing those grounds  have been  so far from suffering  more from
disease  than  formerly that they  have  kept  better health,  and
acknowledge that they have enjoyed greater freedom from fever
since the cultivation of cotton  has been  introduced.  The over-
seers employed to superintend them  have sustained attacks of the
ordinary remittent, which, in  some instances,  have been slight
and short of  duration.   But there has  not been an original  case
of that destructive grade of fever which prevailed in the city, and
which has been attributed to the dry culture.  Mr. Howard in-
forms me that there were  five  white men in his  employ on the
plantation of Mr. Wm. Mein, not more than a few  hundred yards
distant  across the river during the  fall  months, who preserved
their health,  notwithstanding that they constantly breathed  this
air of the dry culture in all its simplicity and strength.  It is sin-
gular, likewise, that the sailors  along the borders  of this planta-
tion, in  the occupancy of the ships in the river, have  been more
exempt from fever this year than usual.   Mr. Bolton informs me
that it was even a subject of remark at New York, in the exercise
of quarantine,  in regard to  vessels  arriving at that  place from
this port. And Captain Jayne, of the  Oglethorpe, who reached
Savannah in the  month of October, states that the part  of his 
\
                  REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.              141

crew which he confined to the ship escaped the epidemic entirely,
while all perished  that  were permitted to come into town.   The
fact is irresistible  and speaks a  volume in defense of that system
which it has attempted to  impugn, and which is not dependent
for its soundness on  any experiment now to  be made.  The dry
culture is the only great radical mode which can be adopted with
any prospect of  rendering  this city  a  tolerable residence during
the summer and autumn.   Under its ancient circumstances, in
conjunction with its present accession of population,  its calamities
will not only continue, but must be augmented.
  The mortality of the past season  is unexampled  indeed ; but
when it is considered that  much arose from the mere increase of
numbers and the foreign material? of which  it was composed it
does not at last  surpass that of former years so  much as is im-
agined.   Since the year 1807 there have been nearly four thou-
sand deaths, so that, calculating the average  census  at that num-
ber for  fourteen years,  to the close of 1820, it appears that the
whole population is exterminated at every  revolution of fourteen
years, and that human life, according to a general computation, is
contracted to that term. It is rare, in any part of the State, that
death draws so tragic a  picture of  his ravages in  such strong col-
ors.   I have inquired particularly into the subject of importation,
and there does not  appear to be any better reason for ascribing the
disease to this source  than to the dry culture.   Importation, as it is
generally understood, means contagion ; and it would be sufficient
to prove that the disease was not  contagious to establish the fact
of not  having been imported.   But  it is more satisfactory to
establish the fact by positive  testimony obtained concerning the
condition of the vessels to  which it has been or might be attribu-
ted.  It was said, by some individuals, to have been  brought from the
coast of Africa, in  a brig called the Raminez, which had on board
a cargo of  new negroes.   Unfortunately, however, for this  hy-
pothesis, the Raminez  did  not only arrive  with a  healthy crew
and an entire freedom from any malignant disease, but she arrived
some time after  the fever had grown into considerable extent and
severity.  I have already  stated that  some rapid and insidious
cases occurred in  June, and that fourteen deaths  took place in
that month.  I have stated that Mr. Patrick Stanton even died of
black vomit on the 16th of  July.  The Raminez came into port on
the 22d.  It was not and could not  be an African disease.  From
the 23d of May  to the  20th of July there  came  five vessels from 
142               THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
the West Indies  and one from New Orleans.  I have not been
able to learn of any others.  On the 23d of May brig Rover, Cap-
tain James, from Havana ; on the 2d of June schooner Phantom,
Havana ; on the  13th of June  schooner Charles, New Orleans ;
on the 24th of June  sloop Darien, St. Domingo ; on the 27th of
June schooner Isabella, Matanzas ; and on July 20th a vessel to
Green & Lippit, from St. Domingo.
  It appears from inquiry as to the state of these vessels, that
the crews were healthy and there was nothing in relation to them
which could authorize a belief of their having either  severe dis-
ease on  board, or the power of  propagating any disease what-
ever.  Captain Newell, of the navy, who was in the employ of the
government during the last  winter and  spring, on the island of
Ossabaw, communicated to me a very singular fact which is wor-
thy of notice.  He states that he left the island  on the 28th of
May, a  short  time previous to  which several of  his  crew were
seized with a  violent fever,  one of whom died ; another died on
the passage to New York, and a third  after their  arrival at  that
port ; that the first in the course of his illness exhibited no in-
crease or decrease of fever, and  the last  was pronounced by Dr.
Baylie, the Health Officer, to be affected  with as  strong appear-
ances of malignancy  as  any case he  had ever seen.   These men
were cut off from all  communication with the main, or with ship-
ping of  any kind, until their embarkation, so  that the disease was
of local origin, and that local origin was a large pond in a stag-
nant condition.  I mention the fact in this place in order to show
the contemporaneous commencement of this fever with  that of
the city ;  their proximate characters in point of violence, and
their probable alliance  through  the general morbific constitution
of the atmosphere.   It tends to  prove the locality of the disease.
But this is further  confirmed  by its  non-contagiousness.  The
Board of Health  in  August, by a communication to  the Mayor,
unanimously attested to this characteristic of  the prevailing fever.
I have not heard of one instance of its being communicated from
one person to  another.   Although many have gone into the coun-
try and  died of black vomit,  there has been  no  further propaga-
tion of any  similar affection.  There  have, too, been  some  very
remarkable instances to test  the principles which are taught in the
school of New York.   It is  contended there, that although what
is commonly denominated yellow fever, may  not be readily com-
municated in a pure atmosphere, it is so,  in an impure one, or one 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
143
 contaminated by marshes.   A country like this is  supremely cal-
 culated to try such a doctrine, because it abounds every year with
 an atmosphere contaminated precisely in this way.  Accordingly
 it has  happened, in  the late  season, that several persons,  after
 having been attacked with the disease of  the city, went  into the
 neighboring rice plantations and died with the usual symptoms.
 Yet there was no  evidence of contagion.   A negro went  from
 town to the place of  Gen. Rutledge, where rice is  cultivated, and
 where it is all swamp, and died with black vomit; yet there was
 no contagion.  Another went  to  the  plantation of Mr. Ebenezer
 Jackson and died in the same  manner, but no one took  the dis-
 ease.  It was not contagious then either  on this ground or in
 conformity with the common principles.
   The only fair way of establishing the New YorK doctrine is to
 prove the importation of the disease, and then to prove its propa-
 gation from the vessel in which it may have been  imported.  To
 do this an obstacle at once  presents itself, which  appears to me
 to be almost insuperable.  For it is confessed  that  no propaga-
 tion takes place without a certain contamination of the atmosphere,
 so  that  it becomes,  at  least,  a  matter of doubt  whether it  be
 owing to that contamination or  to the matter of contagion.   In
 order  to fix  it  on the  matter  of contagion,  it  then becomes
 requisite to prove that such particular  contamination is unable
 alone to produce the disease, and this can be done only by demon-
 strating its positive presence, sometimes without being attended
 with that effect.  This is impossible in the present  state of medi-
 cine, because  it is not quite ascertained what the  circumstances
 are precisely which  produce it.   We say it arises from miasmata,
 by which we mean a  cause of fever consequent on the decompo-
 sition of vegetable or animal matter by the influenc3  of heat and
 moisture.  What the particular nature of the decomposition con-
 sists in;  what constitutes its whole character; what are the pre-
 cise materials of which it is predicated; what are the identical
 qualities of the agent which  results from it;  what quantity or di-
 versity of this agent may be necessary, are  not ascertained.  And,
 until they are ascertained, it is  impossible  to determine at all
 times whether the immediate local cause be certainly present or
 not.   But further, if it can be shown, in a single  instance,  that
 the disease  has been produced without the  aid  of an imported
virus, it then becomes totally impossible by any mode of  reason-
ing with which I  am acquainted to attach it  to this source.   For
      10 
144
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
 if local causes produce it once, why should they not always pro-
 duce it ?  The doctrine teaches that they must always be present,
 and that the virus is inefficient without them.  They are  said to
 go hand in hand, and step for  step.   When the local causes are
 limited, there also is the boundary of the virus influence;  so that
 if the effect can be attributed, for once only, to their sole agency,
 it becomes no longer expedient to look to contagion for additional
 agency.   One cause which is equal to an effect, is always sufficient
 to account for it; if another be associated with it, which neither
 increases nor decreases the  effect, I do not know by what  rule of
 logic it can be  supposed to  be instrumental in  the  production of
 it.   It may have an influence, but I do not know how it is to be
 proved to exercise  it.   Since  it is admitted to be impotent  in
 itself; since it is said to be more virulent as the local causes  are
 more abundant, what means are there left to ascertain its cooper-
 ation, or to insulate it in such a manner as to  consider  the part
 which it acts ?  Can it be done by tracing the gradual progress of
 the disease from the imported camps ?  This will not avail because
 the local cause may be  more dense and active in that situation
 also, as appeared in  the case of the putrid coffee in Philadelphia
 and in the commencement  of the violent cases of the epidemic
 this year in the eastern wards.   Even in our ordinary fall  fevers
 their violence is  not equally developed in all parts of  the city at
 the same moment.  It begins at some point, in  subjection  to the
 course of the winds,  and  that point has generally been  those east-
 ern wards, precisely after the  manner  of the  last  season. The
 New  York contagionist  is thus reduced to the shift  of demon-
 strating that the  common impurities  of the  atmosphere are not
 in greater abundance at the commencing point and its nieghbor-
 hood than they are elsewhere.  If he  can do this, it is impossible
 for him to show the propagation of the imported virus.  This has
 never been done in any instance of which I have anv knowledge.
 The origin of the violent cases of disease has been commonly at
 wharves and docks, which  are the great repository of all those
 local causes which are said  to  be necessary to  the propagation.
 To return, then,  to our  domestic sources, they did undoubtedly
 produce the  few cases of black vomit of 1817.  The epidemic of
 that year had been remittent from June till November, with the
exception  of a  single instance, where it was continued  and at-
tended with black ejections from the stomach.   About  the begin-
ning of November, some of our Northern inhabitants returning 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
145
from  their summer tour in the expectation  that on  their arrival
the epidemic would have come to its conclusion, unfortunately in-
curred the disease, which was still prevailing.  In these instances,
where the system was strong  and inflammable, the absence  of
paroxysms and the symptom of black vomiting made their appear-
ance.  I saw five cases of this description.   They were unquestion-
ably the  common remittent, urged into the continual form by the
operation of the  usual cause upon a higher state of the excita-
bility.  At this period there was little commerce, and few vessels
had ariived in port.   In  one of the cases the patient landed with
indisposition from sea-sickness, which gradually,  although con-
fined  to  the house, assumed this formidable shape of fever, and
eventuated, after a fortnight's duration, in black vomit and death.
There are instances of the local foundation of the  disease which
I have witnessed personally and am fully satisfied with.  They are
sufficient to establish the competency of a domestic cause without the
cooperation of a foreign one, and demonstrated the supereroga-
tion of imputing to  an  imported source any share in  a result
which the local one  is adequate to effect.   I have dwelt thus  on
the hermaphrodite theory of contagion, because it rests on a pos-
sibility of truth in  consequence  of its insuperable  alliance with
the theory of domestic origin and of  the good company which it
is constantly made to keep.
  To  sum  up then, all which  I have suggested, it appears that
the causes of the fever of 1820 have been :  First,  A general
epidemic condition of the atmosphere, of extraordinary virulence,
either proved to exist or  produced by an  uncommon deficiency of
the electrical fluid.   Second, The early establishment of that con-
dition of the atmosphere  by the reduction of the winter of 1819-20
to the temperature  of spring, and the reduction of the spring to
the heat  of summer,  thus bringing upon us in the spring the
usual evils of summer; in the summer,  a combination  of  those
evils with the usual evils of that season, and in the fall an aggre-
gation of the evils which are usually incident to it with this  ex-
traordinary combination of those which preceded them. Third, The
prevalence of eastern winds, which had been predominant and
uncommonly injurious in consequence of the  general abundance
of  moisture  and  miasmata.   Fourth, The growth  of  the city
within a few years and the rapid increase of its population, thus
producing a source of putridity and incorporating it with the soil.
Fifth   The unnecessary luxuriance of the trees by the shade and 
146
THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.
 protection which they afford to dews, and  fogs, and moisture of
 the  atmosphere after  rain.  Sixth,  The great number  of small
 wooden houses, unpainted, and in a complete state of putrescence.
 Seventh, Uncovered vaults and cellars, the consequence of the
 fire.  Eighth, The remarkable number of foreigners and persons
 unaccustomed to the climate, producing not an aggravation of the
 cause of the disease, but of its general grade and character.  Ninth,
 The high  position of the  city on the borders of extensive marsh
 grounds, thus attracting and concentrating upon itself their pro-
 ducts of  unwholesome vapor  and  miasmata.  All  these causes
 together gives a compound origin to  the disease, which is internal
 and external.  The origin is a tangible one, and rests on contin-
 gencies  which the strength and ingenuity of man may counteract.
 But the task is gigantic and can only be accomplished by public
 wealth, and public spirit,  and public firmness.   Nothing can be
 too expensive—no exertions can be better  appropriated  than  to
 give salubrity to a city which it is determined to sustain.  Caprice,
 however heated and liberal and well  disposed, will always lead to
 disappointments, if  not to disgrace.   It  is beyond  the power of
 the corporation  to  do  everything which  ought to be done in a
 work of such magnitude  as the total constitution  of  a  healthy
 climate in  a  place like this which labors under so many disad-
 vantages.   But what can be done should be done, and done com-
 pletely, without any tergiversation.   Temporary expedients are a
 permanent  waste, and in  public as well as private transactions
 lead  only to discomfiture  and defeat.   I have pointed out the
 causes of the  late epidemic which to me are obvious and plain,
 and in which  I  unqualifiedly believe.   It remains for Council to
 select among  them such as it is practicable to remove, and then
 they ought  to remove them totally, without being influenced in
 their pursuit by individual  or popular notions.
  Having assigned  the probable causes of the  epidemic I now
 enter upon a history of  its  character  and the modes of  treament
 which were  employed.   I have already stated that it was intermit-
 tent, remittent and continued.  The intermittent form  prevailed
 throughout  the season, but occurred most frequently in the first
 and latter part of it, because the miasm which produced the dis-
 ease was least  abundant at those periods, and gave birth to a mild
effect in proportion to its quantity.  The remittent form also pre-
vailed throughout the season, but was most rife in the middle of
it, because the miasm, at that point, had become too concentrated 
REPORT BY WILLIAM R. WARING.
147
for an intermittent effect and not rife enough to produce a higher
type of fever.  The continued form began early, but was not per-
fectly established till the last of July.  It went on  then increas-
ing  and  extending, and was more and  more comprehensive nntil
the commencement of cool weather, because the morific cause was
more and more augmented and condensed by the incessant opera-
tion of the circumstances in which it was founded, such was the
order observed by these forms in their relation to one another.
*        *******       *

            [OF STOMACH AND BLACK  VOMIT--PAGE 49.]
   In one instance only an ulceration took place.   There  was no
instance of gangrene.   The inflammation ran  highest  in the ro-
bust and strong, as  in healthy  foreigners.  In  these  the vessels
were so rapidly distended as to burst,  and then the stomach was
found to be full of blood.    *******
                  [OF  BLACK VOMIT—PAGE  50.]
   *   *   *  j)r  Nicholas Chevin,  an  ingenious  and  intelligent
French physician, who  visited  this city during the prevalence of
the epidemic for the purpose of adding still more to a long expe-
rience in yellow fever, firmly entertained this opinion:   "That the
black vomit was blood."  I  confess, however, that  his proofs did
not appear to me to be perfectly satisfactorily.
   *   *   *  In the treatment of  the continued form  of the  epi-
demic of 1820, specifics as  well  as  principles, were unsuccessful
in the majority of cases.
                                    WILLIAM R.  WARING.

   Note.—Sometimes the terms "disease1' and "fever," as used in
this  report, are used to apply, not merely to the whole  epidemic,
but particularly to the continued form of it;  as  if such form were
considered  a  distinct  disease  or  fever.  This note  is inserted,
therefore, to leave no room for doubt or misconception.
   *The remainder of the pamphlet, about thirty-five pages, describes the symptoms
and various modes of treatment adopted in that day, with the author's criticisms of each.
This is omitted as not pertinent to the purposes contemplated in this publication, which
is a contribution to  the general knowledge of the causes and prevention of yellow fever
epidemics. 
148              THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
                           Savannah, Ga., January 23, 1821.
  Dear Sir :  *  *  *  Your views on the subject of fevers,  in
point of character and origin, correspond with the observations I
have made in a thirty years' practice in this climate.  *  *  *  *
  Your report, I am persuaded, will have a salutary influence in
correcting many false notions indulged, by our people, and  much
false theory  among professional men on the  subject of yellow
fever.
        I am, dear sir, respectfully your obedient servant,
                             LEMUEL KOLLOCK, M. D.
  Dr. Waring.
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OP COUNCIL.
       SAVANNAH:
PRINTED BY  HENRY T. RUSSELL,
          1821. 
V.
REPORT OF
JOHN   E. WARD,
MAYOR OF THE CITY OF SAVANNAH,






              —FOR THE—






      YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 30, 1854. 
REPORT.
            Mayor's Office, Savannah, 20th  November, 1854.
  Fellow-Citizens :
*       *******       *
                    YELLOW  FEVER.
  After an exemption from epidemics, unknown to any other city,
and the enjoyment of unexampled health for almost half  a cen-
tury, in the  month of August last our citizens were startled with
the announcement that the yellow fever had made its appearance.
as an epidemic.   The first case of yellow fever occurred on the 5th
of August in a house situated at the southwest corner of Lincoln
and Broughton streets.  Regarded merely as a sporadic case it
was not reported as yellow fever.  Between  that date and the
middle  of the month a few more cases occurred, but nothing to
excite  any  alarm or create any  apprehension  of  an  epidemic
among us.  About that  date it manifested  itself in an epidemic
form, and swept with a fearful desolation over our city.   During
that month  the total number of deaths was  257, 235  of  whom
were whites and 22 blacks.  Of the whites 156 were foreigners, 43_
born in  America, 29 in Savannah and 7 unknown—13 under 1
year of  age, 12 from 1 to 5 years of age, 9 from 5 to 15 years of
age, 120 from 15 to 30 years of age, 6 from 30 to 50 years of age,
12 over 50 years of age and 8 unknown.  Of  the blacks 1 by yel-
low fever and 21 by other diseases—7 under 1 year of age, '2 from
1 to 5,  1 from 5 to 15, 2 from 15 to 30, 5 from 30 to 50, and 5 over
50 years of age.  In the month of  September  there died 646, 591
of whom were whites and 55 were blacks.  Of the whites 367 were
foreigners, 119  were born  in America, 94 in Savannah  and  11
unknown—39 were under 1  year of age, 45 from 1 to 5 years of
age, 39 from 5 to 15 years of age, 287 from 15 to 30 years of age,
135 from 30  to 50 years of age, 43 over 50 and 5 unknown;  381
by yellow fever and 210 by other diseases.   Of the blacks 9 died
from yellow  fever and 46 from other diseases—12 under 1 year of
age,  7 from  1 to 5 years of  age,  7 from 5 to 15 years of age,  14 
  Errata.—On page 151 add the following after paragraph three:
  Various causes have been assigned by different  individuals  for
the existence of the disease during the past  season.  I have felt
it my duty carefully to investigate them.  The first cause assigned
was the introduction of the fever into our city from the brig Char-
lotte Hague, which put into  Cockspur Roads  about the  29th of
June.  She was a Danish brig, bound from Havana to Copenha-
gen.  She was visited on the  30th by the  Port Physician, Dr.
Mackall, who reported two slight cases of sickness on board.  It
having been asserted that some of the men brought from her to
the city died of the yellow fever, I have used  every effort to obtain
evidence  to  prove the  fact, but I have found no proof to satisfy
my own mind that there was any case of yellow fever brought up
to the city from that vessel, and I herewith submit  for your con-
sideration a  letter from Dr. Mackall and one  from Dr. Wragg, the
attending physicians of the Savannah Infirmary, to which all the
men were carried.   Dr. Chartres being absent, I have been unable
to obtain  an answer from him. 
 
REPORT OF MAYOR JOHN E. WARD.             151
 from 15 to 30 years of age, 9 from 30 to 50 years of age and  7
 over 50 years of age.   In the month of October there died 137, of
 whom 108 were whites and 29 blacks.  Of the whites 65 were
 foreigners,  24 were born  in  America, 17 in  Savannah  and  2
 unknown—10 were under 1 year of  age,  8  from 1 to 5 years of
 age, 4 from 5 to 15 years of age, 49 from 15 to 30 years of age, 29
 from 30 to 50 years of age, 7 over 50 years of age and 1 unknown;
 67 died of yellow fever and  41 by other diseases.   Of blacks  4
 died by yellow fever and 25 by other diseases—7 under 1 year of
 age, 7 from 1 to 5 years of age, 5 from 5 to  15 years of age, 5 from
 15 to 30 years of age, 2 from 30 to 50 years of age and 3 over 50.
   Total number of deaths for the months of August, September
 and October, 1,040—934 of whom were whites and 106 blacks.
   The disease was exhibited in its greatest violence from the 20th
 of August  to the 20th of September, having  commenced as an
 epidemic in the northeastern part of the city; it advanced directly
 to the southwest, spreading north and south until  its influence
 was felt in every part of  the city.
   The next cause assigned was the  removal of the mud in the
 dredging of  the Savannah river, and depositing the same on the
 eastern wharves.   I respectfully submit to you two  letters, one
 from Lieut. John Newton, the engineer in charge of the  work,
 and the other from Francis Cercopely, the  superintendent of  the
 same, which, clearly establishing the  fact that  the mud was  not
 placed on the eastern  wharves, or in  any manner exposed to the
 atmosphere, destroys the theory of those who had traced the exis-
 tence of the  fever to that cause.
   Another cause assigned, has been the condition of the rice lands
 in the immediate vicinity of our city.   These lands at the time of
 the commencement of  the fever, and during its greatest violence,
 were in good order and never healthier.  Vegetation was not de-
 caying, and  there was no  adequate cause  for  the disease  to be
 found in them.  After the banks had  been broken by the storm—
 with vegetation decaying,  the  lands  overflowed, and everything
 tending to increase the disease, if  it had  originated from  that
 source__it commenced to decrease,  and before  the middle of Oc-
 tober, without frost or any other agency to which  we had looked
 for its removal, it ceased to  exist among  us as an epidemic.   I
 can only regard it as an atmospheric storm passing over the whole
 Southern country  and  taking our city in its course.   It doubtless
followed certain definite laws, but so did the  tempest that swept 
152
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
over our  city on the eighth  day of September.  They both ex-
pressed the  will of the great lawgiver—of Him, at whose com-
mand the storm or the pestilence arises and pursues its course,
baffling the power or  the skill of man, until it has accomplished
His wise purposes.  It may be that He will again command the
pestilence to desolate  our city, and to hush the accents of affec-
tion in our homes,  but there  is no more reason to apprehend its
return from  any local cause existing around  us  than to dread
another hurricane  on the eighth of September next.  We must
still witness,  everywhere around us, the memorials of our losses,
but with a firm reliance on His mercy, who  has so long blessed
us with uninterrupted prosperity, and an  abiding confidence in
His power who has stood between the living and the dead, let us
be true to ourselves and the prosperity of our city, and  the hap-
piness of her people will soon be restored.
  Attacked by the epidemic on the  7th of September, I was for
some time unable  to discharge the  duties of my office.  • During
that period, its arduous labors were  cheerfully and zealously per-
formed by Dr. James  P. Screven, surrounded by  death  and de-
spondency, in  the midst  of dangers which  might  well have
appalled " the bravest of  the  brave."
  Not  a candidate for re-election, I avail  myself  of  this oppor-
tunity to express my most grateful acknowledgments to the people
of Savannah  for that confidence which has repeatedly  elevated
me to offices of honor and trust,  for that charity with which my
acts have  been judged, and for  that  personal  kindness which I
have ever received  from them.
        Very respectfully and  truly,
                     Your obedient servant,
                                 JOHN E. WARD, Mayor.
9 
CORRESPONDENCE.
                              Savannah, November 15th, 1854.
 To Hon. John E. Ward, Mayor:
   Dear Sir:  In compliance with your request for a written state-
 ment of all the facts coming under my personal knowledge con-
 nected with the introduction of certain cases of fever  into this
 city from a foreign vessel in July last, I submit as follows:
   On the 30th of June last I  was called to visit a vessel at Tybee
 reported as having sickness on board.   I answered the call.  Be-
 fore  reaching  the vessel  (which  proved to be the Danish brig
 Charlotte  Hague, Captain Buck), I found the Captain and one
 seaman requiring medical  services.  The  Captain, however, had
 no fever, and was evidently recovering from a mild attack of re-
 mittent fever, at least such was my opinion.  The seaman I found
 sick with bilious remittent fever.   I prescribed  for my patients
 and -returned to the city, reporting  them  to you  in accordance
 with  the above facts.
   On the 2d of July I was again called on  to visit the Charlotte
 Hague.  The Captain met me on  the deck—the  seaman was also
 on deck, and much better.
   Another seaman was  called to  me for examination (a similar
 case).  I prescribed for them.   Seeing that those patients would
 probably require more medical attention  (which at Tybee was
 onerously expensive  to  the owners), I gave the  Captain permis-
 sion to  bring his sick to the city; this  he did the  following day
 (July 3d),  and  entered with them the Savannah Infirmary, where
 I visited them  in connection with my partner, Dr. J. A. Wragg,
 until  the fifth, on which  day, being compelled  to leave for the
 North on account of my own health, Dr. W. M. Chartres took my
 place and continued to visit them with Dr. Wragg.
  I have only to add that the symptoms these cases exhibited, up
 to the time I left them, differed in no respect from a number of
 other cases of remittent fever under treatment in  the Infirmary at
the same time, and showed no  symptoms of yellow fever.
                 Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
                                         R. A. MACKALL. 
154
THE epidemic at savannah.
                             Savannah, November 4th, 1854.
To Hon. John E. Ward, Mayor:
  Dear Sir :  At your request, I hereby  furnish you  with  the
facts in relation to the Danish brig, Charlotte Hague, said to have
brought the yellow fever  to  Savannah.  These facts have been
taken from the books of the Savannah Infirmary, where the Cap-
tain and two of the seamen belonging to the brig  were under
medical treatment for a few days.
  The Danish brig, Charlotte Hague, put into Cockspur Roads
about the 29th or 30th of June, 1854, and was visited on the 30th
by the Port  Physician.  On the 3d of July  two of  the seamen
were brought to  the  Savannah  Infirmary,  where they remained
until the 7th, and were discharged cured.  They had not the least
symptom of yellow fever.   The Captain was also admitted to  the
Infirmary, and discharged cured.   He had not the least symptom
of yellow fever.   On the 7th they returned to the brig and  she
went to sea.   The brig never came up to  the city, and the men
brought up nothing but the clothing they had on.
        Very respectfully and truly, your obedient servant,
                                 JOHN ASHBY WRAGG.
                    Charleston, S.  C, 9th November, 1854.
Hon. John E. Ward,  Mayor:
  Dear Sir:  In reply to your letter just received I have to state
(without opportunity of looking over returns) that about 90,000
cubic yards have been taken out of the channels over the garden
banks and the wrecks.
  All the material from the  bottom was deposited until July on
the South Carolina shore, near Hog Island, distant about four or
five miles from Savannah.  After that time they were  dropped in
a pocket channel  existing on the wreck bank, and have never, I
believe,  been exposed for a moment to  the  air.  I  regard  the
assumption of sickness emanating from such cause as the most
unwarranted possible.  Capt. Cercopely can  give you the most
minute information on this subject if you require more.
    I am, sir, yours, most  respectfully,
             JOHN NEWTON,  First Lieutenant  Engineers.
Hon. John E. Ward,  Mayor:
  Dear Sir:  As you wish information from me in regard to dredg-
ing done in Savannah river, I will comply with your request as 
                 REPORT OF MAYOR JOHN E. WARD.             155   *

hear as possible.  I have been inspector  of the dredging under
Capt. Gilmer and Lieut. Newton's instruction, and I must, in the
first place, say  that the material taken  from the bottom of the
river has never  been deposited on  any of the  wharves.  All the
material has been deposited at different places, generally in Back
river and points near  the Carolina shore,  as directed by the offi-
cers, about four or five miles from  the city, and has never for a
moment been exposed to the air, excepting at the time the scows
were loading, and when loaded they were  immediately towed to
the places above mentioned, and the mud dropped in six or seven
feet water.
  You wish to understand bow the scows are constructed.  They
are so constructed that by the means of a trap door the  material
drops through the bottom.  As regards  the assumption  of sick-
ness originating from  such  a cause it  is, in  my opinion, very
absurd and inconsistent.   Why did we not have yellow fever last
year when dredging  was in  operation  from  about  June  to
November ?
                      I am, yours, etc.,
                               FRANCIS J. CERCOPELY. 
 
      ■   REPORT
              —OF—
EDWARD C. ANDERSON
MAYOR OF THE CITY OF SAVANNAH,

               —FOR THE—

      YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31, 1876. 
 
REPORT.
***       ***      *       *       #
  After a period of  eighteen years of unexampled health, and an
exemption from epidemic of any kind, our community was  star-
tled in the month of August last by the announcement that the
yellow fever had broken out in the eastern part of the city.
  The first recorded death from yellow fever  occurred on August
the 21st, on  Wright street, a short cut  de sac, about fifty  yards
long,  the culmination of Bryan street, in the  northeastern part of
the city, viz.:  James P. Cleary.  The second  occurred in the same
street and same locality, August 22d, viz.: Joseph Lynch.  The
third and fourth, August 26th, same locality, viz.: John Lynch and
Mrs. John Lynch.  The fifth occurred August 26th, on East Broad
street, two  doors north of Broughton,  viz.:  Michael  Delaney.
The sixth took place August 27th, on Reynolds street, next to Gas
House,  viz.: Mary  Ann Smye.   The seventh, August  27th,  on
Broughton  street, three doors west of Reynolds, viz.:  Mary
Kehoe.  The eighth, August 27th, on East Boundary street, north
end, viz.:  Catherine Kehoe.  The  ninth, August 27th, on Ran-
dolph and President streets, viz:  Frederick Lawson.
  On the 28th of August there are five deaths recorded, one which
took place on Stone street, Mrs. Mary E. Malcomes ; one on State
street, between Whitaker and Barnard, Edward L. Drummond,
and the remaining three in  the northeastern  part of the city.
  On the 29th of  August three deaths occurred:  One on Indian
lane, W. M.  Thompson, the other two not specified.
  After this the disease spread rapidly, and  was not confined to
any locality.  The highest number of deaths  in the city from yel-
low fever in  any one day was thirty-three, on the 20th of Septem-
ber.   The highest number  from all causes, forty-two, on the 23d
of September.  These  occurred in the fifth week of the epidemic,
embracing the period  between the 18th  and 24th of September,
during which week there are reported 229 deaths from all causes.
  From the  21st of  August until the 14th of  November,  inclusive
       11 
160
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
a period of eighty-seven days, the total mortality from all causes,
whites and colored, reached 1,351, this number being subdivided
as follows, viz.:  Whites, yellow fever, 771; colored, yellow fever,
125.  Total yellow fever, 896.  Whites, other  diseases,  160; col-
ored, other diseases, 295; total  455.   Of this  latter total of 455
deaths from other diseases, there have occurred in this city among
the whites thirty-eight  deaths, from such diseases  as have been
reported to the sextons of the three cemeteries, as malarial fever,
pernicious fever, fever, congestive fever, bilious fever, convulsions,
etc., a large portion of which were probably directly due to the
pernicious influence of  the  epidemic,  and  many  of them, in  all
probability, were genuine cases of yellow fever.
  Among the colored there occurs in the  same category  132.  If
the above inference is correct, the report of the mortality during
the epidemic would exhibit  the following figures:  Deaths from
yellow fever—whites, 809; colored, 257; total,  1,066.  Other dis-
eases—whites, 122;  colored, 163;  total,  285.  The  inference  is
corroborated by a comparison with the usual death  rate of pre-
ceding years during the same period when there has not been any
epidemic  of  yellow fever  prevailing.   In  the period embraced
between the 21st of August and the 14th of November,  the epi-
demic being  declared by the physicians  at an end  on the latter
date,  there were forty interments  of yellow fever in the several
cemeteries of persons who  were  brought dead to the city from
different points,  viz.: Isle of  Hope, Whitesville, Thunderbolt, etc
After the  14th of November six deaths from yellow fever occurred
in the city among  the  whites and one among the colored, and
three white persons were brought  dead to the city for interment.
The last recorded death from yellow  fever in the city  occurred
December 1st.
  The origin of the epidemic is involved in obscurity, and a great
difference of  opinion exists among the  physicians as to  whether
the disease is  indigenous to our climate or exotic.  A special com-
mitte appointed  by  Council and  the Benevolent Association have
this subject under investigation, and will, in due time, report the
result of  their labors.
  Dr. Wm. Duncan has prepared a carefully  elaborated history
of the epidemic from its commencement to its close,  which he has
kindly consented to publish as  an addendum to  this report.   I
have been permitted to  verify the figures given in the brief  state-
ment above presented from his data. 
REPORT OF MAYOR E. C. ANDERSON.
161
  The history  of the terrible pestilence which  devastated  our
unfortunate city would be incomplete without grateful recognition
of the generous efforts made to alleviate our distress.  As soon as
it became apparent that yellow fever was epidemic  at Savannah,
almost  the  entire  population, whose circumstances permitted,
withdrew from our  limits, leaving only  those  who,  from  the
requirements of official position, or an elevated sense of  duty, felt
constrained  to remain.  The small white population possessed of
any means or experience were at once burdened with a large mass
of their fellow-citizens, both white and colored, entirely depend-
ent upon their daily labor, and who at once lost their only means
of support upon the sudden prostration of  all business.
*       ********
                         EDWARD C.  ANDERSON,  Mayor. 
 
A  COMMUNICATION
TO THE CITY COUNCIL ON THE
PRIVY   SYSTEM
               OF SAVANNAH,
  BY JAMES J. WARING, Alderman.
THE PUTREFACTION OF ITS CESS-VAULTS
    A DANGER TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH.
THE ONLY REMEDY, THE ROCHDALE PALE SYSTEM—THE ROCHDALE PALE
   SYSTEM DESCRIBED—TESTIMONY AS TO THE HEALTH RESULTING
      FROM THE PAIL SYSTEM, CONTRASTED WITH THE
          SPREAD OF DISEASE FROM THE WATER
            CLOSET AND SEWER SYSTEM.
SAVANNAH, NOVEMBER 27, 1877.
     SAVANNAH, GA.:
MORNING NEWS STEAM PRINTING HOUSE.
        I877- 
 
 
ROCHDALE CORPORATION.
       EnUuged> Sections of lid tc Closet Tub.
Ash-lab
Closet Tub
  HOC5DAIE
Narrow Woodln Priv^
 
    THE  EVIL  AND   REMEDY
                            —OF—

THE  PRIVY  SYSTEM  OF
    The population of Savannah by the last census was 28,000.  It
  is probable this number has diminished to 26,000.  The plateau
  upon which Savannah is built is fifty feet above tide water, gently
  sloping from north to south to an average of forty feet.  The
  water level below the surface of this plateau varies from six feet
  in the southern wards to twenty feet near the river in the northern
  wards.
    The number of houses in Savannah  is near five thousand.  The
  number of water  closets  is 1,759, (see summary of J. C. Cornell
  below).  And the number of privies or midden vaults is 3,366,
  (see report of Police Inspectors below).
    But the evil of the midden vaults  is  not to be estimated by this
  enumeration, for the large majority  of the water closets connect
  with closed or sealed midden vaults, called dry wells, which are
  (perhaps in lesser degree) nevertheless putrefaction beds,  con-
  necting by the waste pipes with the interior of  houses.
    As the water works of Savannah were established in 1853, and
'  the sewer system not established until 1872, the water closets very
  generally put into  houses after 1853 were forced to connect by
  waste pipes with such dry wells.  I find in the office of the Clerk
  of Council a record of sewer permits dating only from January
  1, 1871, and from that date only 106 permits for water closet con-
  nections have been issued.  That  this record is very erroneous
  need hardly be  asserted.   It is safe to say, in the absence  of a
  record, which ought to be taken by Mr. Cornell, that of the 1,759
  water closets about 500 only connect with the sewers.
   The water supply of Savannah is very abundant.  The number
  of gallons of water thrown upon the plateau for the supply of the
 inhabitants, averaged in  1876, 47,533,169 gallons per month ;
 and in 1877, for August, September  and October, 53,498,939 gal-
 
166
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
 Ions, (see statement of K. D. Guerard, Superintendent of Savan-
 nah Water Works).   The refuse water and sewage is conducted
 by a system of sewers, the  main artery of  which passes  down
 Broughton  and East Broad  streets, to its terminus  on Bolton
 street, whose short trunk sewer  discharges the  whole into  the
 Bilbo canal, now thoroughly flushed and  disinfected by the tides
 which reach up its whole length.
   The number of privies in Savannah is 3,366, of which 2,886  are
 in good condition, 405 need attention and  75 need  immediate
 attention.  The privies of  Savannah are  built  with retaining
 walls of  very porous  brick and  open porous  sand bottom, drain-
 ing  laterally and  downwards to  the  water level.  A municipal
 ordinance requires them  to be six  feet in depth, and  requires
 them to be emptied when they are filled to three feet  of the sur-
 face. These privies  fill slowly  with solid excremuta, the liquid
 portion being filtered away laterally through a very porous homo-
 genous  sand  soil ; hence,  the difficulty, if not impossibility, of
 proper emptying by any process of pneumatic suction, such as is
 sanctioned and encouraged by the present ordinance.
   No mild language can fairly describe the nauseating abomina-
 tion of  these middens. Even when clean, the saturated  brick
 sides give off as much odor  as the full vault.  When it is realized
 that modern science has proven beyond refutation, that the germs
 of such diseases as yellow fever, typhus and typhoid fever, diph-
 theria, etc.,  are the pathogenic bacteria  of  putrefactive beds and
 putrefactive  fermentations,  the grave question of how to deal
 with this pressing evil comes  home to  each  member of this
 Board of Aldermen.   He cannot thrust it aside.
   That the spores, or zoospores, or aurosporen of these bacteria
 have continued to live through the last winter in lurking or shel-
 tered spots, in spite of the cold, and that  they have germinated
 here and there on some putrefactive bed favorable  for such devel-
 opment, we have too  sad evidence in the recent death of one of
 our most valued citizens and the admired associate of  this Coun-
 cil.  The efficiency of carbolic acid as a destroyer of these bacteria
 was  amply proven at New Orleans in the fatal year of  1876, and I
respectfully urge upon Council  that large quantities of carbolic
acid with no stinting hand be poured into and upon every midden
vault and receptacle of putrefaction with an organized force, not
only during the winter, but also again upon the opening of April
 and  May. 
             EVIL AND REMEDY OF THE PRIVY SYSTEM.          167

  But such  a  sanitary measure is temporary, and the following
information is submitted, and each alderman is respectfully urged
to read carefully every line of these gathered facts.
  The Kochdale pail system is practicable and easily carried  out.
Once it is understood and confidence established in the certainty
that the pails  will be emptied, it will be gladly adopted by every
householder.  Such is the universal experience.  It is respectfully
recommended to incorporate in the tax ordinance an annual tax or
license  upon the old midden single privies  of  $15,  and upon
double midden privies  of $30, and upon the Rochdale pail privy
of $12.   The single pail must be emptied once a week.   A  van
(see plate)  with two mules  and  two men will make three trips
per night, carrying away and  replacing thirty-six pails.  In other
words thirty-six  pails must  pay for a  van, and two mules, and
two men, fifty-two nights.  A liberal allowance will make the fol-
lowing expenses:
    Expenses of van....................$ io oo
    Two mules for two months at $12 a mule.........  48 00
    Two men for two months of twenty-six workings days, or fifty-
       two days, at Si 00 a  day..............104 00
    Clerks for two months at S50 a month...........100 00
        Total......................$262 00

  Divided  by thirty-six, the  number of pail privies would make
an expense of  $7.27 per  privy.  It is obvious from these figures
that a general system would diminish the expense to $4.00.  The
old privy vaults  should be thoroughly  cleaned by the town  and
arched  over  with brick  and  cement and a trap communication
made for the reception of kitchen slops, thus making of them
dry wells.  Finally,  an ordinance should subject these pail privies
to police inspection, and a severe  penalty  in the police court at-
tached, for emptying into the privies kitchen slops or anything
other than the  natural accumulation of urine and excrement. 
168
THE  EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
REPORT OF  POLICE INSPECTORS OF THE  BOARD  OF
                            HEALTH.
                         NUMBER OF PRIVIES.
Wards.
Troup ...................
Lafayette.................
Derby...................
Reynolds  .................
Decker..................
Franklin   .  .  .  . ,.............
Jasper and  Pulaski.............
Brown   ..................
Crawford.................
Calhoun..................
Anson   ..................
Percival..................
Forsyth..................
Green and Columbia.............
Elbert and  Jackson............
Liberty..................
Heathcote.................
Currytown  and Berrien...........
Warren and Washington...........
Bartow  and Davis (Bryan Row)........
River Front north of Bay street and New Franklin
Magazine.................
Choctaw Railroad, O'Neil, Walton and Minis .  .
Outskirts Southwest (Western  Division) ....
Outskirts Southwest (Eastern Division.....
South, North and Middle Oglethorpe......
Chatham and Monterey...........

   Total..................
 38
 27
 12
 55
 15
 19
 47
 3i
189
 76
 46
 34
175
 60
 78
 40
 49
142
 6S
129
27S
247
250
175
262
254
 90
2;  "
2,SS6, 405  75  3,366 
               EVIL AND REMEDY OF  THE PRIVY  SYSTEM.           169

                  WATER CLOSET CENSUS.

                      NUMBER OF WATER CLOSETS.
On River street, from eastern wharf to  canal.............    2
On Bay street from East Broad to West Broad............   185
On Bay lane    "   "    "    "     «   -   ............    3
On Bryan street, "   "    "    "     "      ............    80
On St. Julian street, from East Broad to West Broad..........    3
On Congress   "    "    "    "     "          ..........    92
On Broughton "    "    "    "     "          ..........   154
On State      "    "         "     "          ..........    41
On President  "    "    "    "     "          ..........    22
On York      "    "    "    "     "          ..........    27
On South Broad"    "    "    "     "          ..........   144
On Hull      "    "    "    «     "          ..........    16
OnMcDonough"    "    "    "     "          ..........    8
On Perry      "    "    "    "     "          ..........    48
On Liberty    "    "    "    "     "          ..........   122
On Harris     "    "    "    "     "..........    36
On Macon     "    "    "    "     "          ..........    16
On Charlton   "    "    "    "     "          ..........    49
On Jones      "    "    "    "     "          ..........   104
On Taylor     "    "    "    "     "          ..........    81
On Gordon    "     "    "    "     "          ..........    5°
On Gaston     "    "    "    "     "...........    65
On Huntington "     "    "    "     "          ..........    21
On Hall      "    "    "    "     "          ..........    14
On Gwinnett  "    "    "    "     "          ..........    2
On Bolton     "    "    "    "     "          ..........    3°
On Walburg   "    "    "    "     "          ..........    8
On Duffy  "   "    "    "    "     "          ..........    9
On New Houston    "    "    "     "          ..........    33
On Henry     "    "    "    "     "          ..........    5

                                                                 1,460
On East Broad street from Bay to Liberty street..........    4
On Houston      "    "     "   "     "      "    .  .  .........    3
On Price         "    "     "   "  Anderson "    ..........    2
On Lincoln       "    "     "   "     "      "    •  •  •  ■......    2
On Habersham    "    "     "   "     "      "    ..........    5
On Abercorn      "    "     "   "     "      "    ..........    42
On Drayton      "    "     "   "     "      "    ..........    3°
On Bull          "    "     "   "     "      "    ..........    40
On Whitaker     "    "     "   "     "      "..........    33
On Barnard       "    "     "  "     "      "    ..........    35
On Tatnall        "    "  Liberty to  "      "    ..........    20
On Jefferson      "    "  Bay    "  "      "    ..........    16
On Montgomery   "    "     "                   ..........    IO
On WTest Broad   "    "    "     "  "      "    ..........    37

                                                                 1,75°
On Broughton street from East Broad to Randolph street........    1
On Liberty      "    "                         "    ........    2

                                                                 1,753
On Indian street from West  Broad to canal.............    1
On Harrison "                    "       .............    l
On Margaret  "     "       "      "   "  .............    4

    Total  in the city.......................J>759 
170
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
Alderman J. J Waring:
  The accompanying information is the result of the census I have taken of the
water closets in the city.                            J. C. CORNELL.

     STATEMENT BY SUPERINTENDENT OF WATER WORKS.
  The average gallons of water supplied  to the  city of Savannah per month
during 1876 was 47,533,169 gallons.  The  consumption during the months of
August, September and October, 1877, was as follows :
    August,  1877................53,521,904 gallons.
    September,  1877...............52,440,964 gallons.
    October, 1877................54,533,949 gallons.
                Respectfully, your obedient servant,
                                            R.  D. GUERARD,
                             Superintendent Savannah Water Works.
         [From the Journal of the Society of Arts, May 11, 1877, p. 569.]
REPORT ON THE PAN, PAIL, AND MIDDEN  SYSTEMS OF
               DISPOSING: OF DRY SEWAGE.
                         GREAT BRITAIN.
             BY GILBERT R. REDGRAVE, ASSOC. INST. C. E.
  Mainly owing to the exertions of  the  officers and inspectors of
the Board of Health, and  the  admirable reports of the medical
officers to the Privy Council, the  abominable midden system, as
it formerly existed in all old towns,  is fast disappearing, and in
its place, we find numerous  contrivances for abating the nuisance
and evil occasioned by the retention  near our dwellings of vast
heaps of putrefying refuse.  Full descriptions  of  the  improved
systems  of midden construction,  and details  of the  dry closets,
pans, pails and other appliances, for the reception and removal of
faecal matters, may be found in  the  Twelfth Report of  the Medi-
cal  Officer of the Privy Council  (1869), and the Second Report
(new  series,  1874).  If we  look at  the  condition of  the chief
Lancashire and Yorkshire towns some ten years ago we find that
the midden or ash-pit arrangement  was  everywhere  in  vogue.
Into open, reeking middensteads, was thrown the  entire refuse
of the house, there  to  undergo slow decomposition along  with
the excrement and slop water.   The Birmingham and Manches-
ter reports of that date give us estimates of the united areas of
these masses  of  putrefaction, and the Public Works Committee
of the former town tells us, as late  as 1861, that in their town
there were  thirteen and a half acres of space devoted to such 
EVIL AND REMEDY OF THE PRIVY SYSTEM.          171
middens, practically open to the air.  The manifest improvements
of the last few years has removed  much that was most objection-
able in the old midden system ; thus, the Manchester authorities
filled  up the midden-pits level with the  surface  of the  ground,
excavating at  the  same time, and carting  away  the foul and in-
fected earth which surrounded them.  They introduced  in their
place  the earthenware bevel-midden, which was  perfectly imper-
vious, and,  from  its small  capacity, demanded  very frequent
emptying.  All types of midden  construction which limited  the
storage  area were  of necessity improvements, and when the mid-
den took the form  of a handy tub, pail, or box, which was entirely
water-tight,  and was capable of  being  constantly emptied and
cleansed, the main objections to the  system were removed.   We
look upon the  pail-system, when properly attended to, and super-
intended by the local authority, as the most simple and practical
plan of  dealing with the excreta of a manufacturing population ;
and it kis certainly the only  one  which holds out hope of  the
profitable utilization  of faecal matters in  the  future.   We pro-
pose,  in the present report, to examine, first,  some of  the various
modes of pail-collection, and then to describe briefly the processes
now in  actual operation  for the  conversion of  the excreta into
manures.  We may consider the  pail system  under  three sub-
divisions :
  1. Pails used without absorbents.
  2. Pails used in conjunction with absorbents.
  3. Pails used for the joint collection of the ashes and the excreta.
  Rochdale was the  parent  of the first  of these systems, and,
under the indefatigable care  of Alderman  Taylor, the  process he
introduced some seven years ago seems in a fair  way to become
generally adopted  in the surrounding towns.  The Rochdale plan
has been  so often described  that it is not  now necessary to go
into details.   The main features, so far as we need consider them
at present, are the systematic collection of the  excreta  and the
dry house'refuse at short intervals, in tubs of special construction ;
the provision of separate tubs for  the excreta and the  ashes ; the
careful  arrangements for the transport of the excreta to the depot
without smell, by  the adoption of an air-tight  lid to the pails,
and the use of vans with India-rubber beads round  the doors ;
and lastly, the excellent  mode of book-keeping, by  which the
work  of the carters is checked, and  records  are  obtained  of the
weight  of all materials  brought to the yard.  In his paper con- 
172
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
tributed to the conference in May last, Alderman Taylor gave, as
the latest result of his work in Rochdale, that there  were  5,644
pail closets emptied weekly, used by 52,000 persons, and giving a
gross weight of  excreta collected  during the past twelve-month of
5,398 tons.  In an analysis of these results, undertaken by Messrs.
Rawlinson & Read in their recent report (p. 60.) it is shown that
from this it would seem that 19.1 cwts. were annually collected per
tub, and that each tub  was used by 9.2 persons, who thus pro-
duced only 2.07 cwts. per head.   As the weight of the excreta of
an average human being, taken at 2| lbs. per diem, would give an
annual  total of  1.8 cwts., it is argued  that the  system fails to
account for 6 cwt. per head, or nearly three-fourths of the faecal
matters.  The  Rochdale pail contents are, however, likely, for
several local reasons, to be under the usual average, though by no
pail system do we ever obtain more than the solids, together with
about three-fifths of  the liquid dejections.  In Halifax, each tub
is used by 10.9 persons living in 2.6 houses (the Rochdale propor-
tion is about 2.2 houses per tub),  and the weight collected  is 77
lbs. per pail per week, or 1  lb. per head per diem, which  is the
amount generally assumed as sufficiently correct.
  The second sub-division is pails used in  conjunction with ab-
sorbents.  As a type of  this system, I must instance  the process
employed by the Goux Manure Company, and now in operation
at Halifax, Aldershot, and  in  many rural  districts.   The plan
adopted by the company is to 3urround  the  bottom and the inte-
rior of the pails with a  lining of some porous material.  In the
pails we have seen, the amount of lining is never sufficient wholly
to absorb the liquid, and thus, towards the end of  the  period
during which the pail is in use, the contents are found to be in a
semi-fluid state.   There is certainly some abatement of nuisance
arising from  the Goux lining, and a partial immunity  from the
risk of splashing, but the advantages of the lining do not, I be-
lieve, counterbalance the expense  incurred by the extra weight to
be carted backwards and forwards  from the depot, and  the in-
creased cost  of the preparation of the  pails.  There is, in fact,
little sanitary or economic gain in the use of absorbents, and the
manure made on this system does not theoretically much exceed
in value the simple compost of ashes and excreta.
  Under the  third head I include those systems where the ashes
are introduced into the tubs, either screened, as at Manchester, or
unscreened,  as at Nottingham and several other large towns. In 
             EVIL AND REMEDY OF THE PRIVY  SYSTEM.         173

 the latter plan we have simply the substitution of  the tub, or box,
 for the old middenstead.   Where Morrell's closet is used, or the
 Manchester  cinder-sifter, the aim is to exclude the larger and
 heavier matters, and to put the  ash only into the tubs.   I may
 at once express  my belief that  every  mechanical contrivance  I
 have yet seen for effecting this is a  failure, and I am  convinced
 that the mixture  of  the ashes with the excreta is unattended with
 any advantage, either from the sanitary or from  the economical
 point  of  view.   In  the  summer time, when the pail contents are
 likely to be most  offensive, the volume  of ash is  small, and the
 pails  arrive  at the  depot in  a  very fluid state.   Scarcely ever,
 however, do  we  find sufficient ash present to absorb the liquids.
 The ash is said to act as a deodorant; and it certainly  has some
 small  influence in this way, though it  merely, I think, retards
 decomposition, and has no real effect in  retaining  ammonia and
 the other valuable components of the faeces.   Mr. Leigh says that
 where an admixture with ashes  is made no larvae are ever found
 in the pails, but we are inclined to think that with a weekly col-
 lection  such  a state of things can rarely occur, whether with or
 without ashes.  Upon economic grounds, and having in view the
 preparation of high  class manures  from excreta, we may repeat
 that the admixture with ashes, as also  with earth, charcoal and
 other substances  used in the  receptacles, is undoubtedly  a mis-
 take.
  Having thus glanced at the chief modes of  pail collection, I may
 lay down the following general rules : That one week is the long-
 est period that should elapse between the times of emptying each
 receptacle, unless the liquids  and solids are kept separate.   That
 the covers used for the removal of the pails from the house to the
 van should be absolutely air-tight.   That the vans for the convey-
 ance of the pails  to the depot should have air-tight doors, and be
 sprinkled at the bottom  with some  cheap deodorant.  That the
 introduction  of deodorants into the pails is  of little use,  as the
 quantity that can be applied is almost immediately  buried or
 exhausted.  That no system of "  filling up " or emptying the pails
into liquid manure carts should be permitted, but  that  each pail,
with its contents, should be brought  to the depot, and a clean one
substituted for it  in the privy.  That it would be an advantage in
 the pail system to provide some ready means for  the separation,
in the receptacle  itself, of the solids from the liquids ; and, lastly,
that the removal of the  pails should be entirely  in the hands of 
174
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
the local authority, and should  be conducted upon  some  such
careful system as that practiced in Rochdale.
  The town of Rochdale, which has thus attracted some attention
in the scientific world, is described in the Journal of the Society of
Arts, May 5th, 1876, page  560 :
  Rochdale.—Population, 67,590 ; mortality, 24.10.  Water  car-
riage sewage contains  manufacturing refuse ; is drained direct
into the river Roche ; 429  water closets in use.
  Pail closets, 5,553 ; middens, 2,276, and ash-pits, 1,590 in use.
  Mr. J. Netten Radcliff s report for 1874, states : " The Rochdale
system consists in the systematic removal  at  weekly or  shorter
intervals of the  excrement, and dry house refuse in pails each sep-
arate from the  other, the  manufacture of  the excrement with the
fine coal ash into manure, and the proper utilization  of the dry
refuse ;" and mentions that  " taking the week ending September
24, 1873, the total net cost to the town for the removal  of excre-
ta  and  house  refuse  of a population  of  36,894 was £10 3s. 3d.,
being at the rate of £14 6s. 8d. per 1,000 per annum."
   A further description of the Rochdale system is found on  page
122 of twelfth  report of the Medical Officer of the Privy  Council
of  Great Britain for  1869 :
   The pails used in Rochdale are made by  the committee  who
have undertaken the system from disused parafine  casks, each
cask cut traversely in  half form  two pails.  Iron handles are at-
tached to each pail, and  the cost of each pail complete for use
amounts to 3s.  4d.  The pails are changed for other pails belong-
ing to the committee, and this is done weekly, except  in the case
of  lodging houses or closets used  by more than one family,  when
they are changed twice  or thrice a week.  Before the full pail is
moved from the closet it is covered by  a lid with India rubber
packing  attached to the flange.   Thus covered  it is placed  in a
closed van for removal to  the depot.  We are satisfied from the
statements  made to us by householders, to whose residences pail
closets are attached, that  the removal of  the filled pails gives rise
 to very little offense, even in those instances where the pails have
 to be carried through the house.   *   *   *  Since last summer
offense from the vans in removal has been obviated by the intro-
duction of the  tight-fitting lids to  the tubs.
   The number of  closet  tubs in  use January 19, 1870, was 580.
According  to  our  book,  in  the week ending January 26,  1870, 
EVIL AND REMEDY OF THE PRIVY SYSTEM.         175
pails emptied, 582 ; emptied February 2, 481 ;  emptied February
9, 581 ;  February 16, 410, being an average of  513 per week.
  The vans collect three loads  per day  and one load on  Satur-
day—sixteen loads per week—the average weight  of  which are
believed to be 30 cwt.

                                                 £■    s.    d.
Wages for 6'^.....................24    19   8
Keep of two horses at ^1 each per week..........8    o   o
Cost of materials used..............    ...5    12   o
                                                 38    12   8
          [From the Journal of the Society of Arts, May 26, 1876, p. 656.
ON THE REMOVAL  OF THE EXCRETA AND REFUSE OF
      ROCHDALE BY  THE " ROCHDALE SYSTEM."
                   BY  MR. ALDERMAN TAYLOR.
  In the year 1864 I wrote to the Night-soil-Committee, detailing
to it a method of  dealing with night soil and  refuse of  the town,
by which the increasing  cost of removal might  be lessened, the
objectionable privies and middens abolished, and the health of the
town improved.
  The letter was read,  but the plan was not then taken  into con-
sideration.
  There was also the fellow question of the disposal of the sewage
proper raised about the same period, and in 1866 it was distinctly
recommended by high engineering authorities to turn  the whole
of the sewage into the  river, so that it  might  make its way to the
sea.  The  scheme was strenuously resisted by  the  writer, and,
after some lengthy discussion, the Council refused to  adopt the
wasteful scheme, and decided to further consider the whole ques-
tion.  To the writer it  appeared of the first importance that the
question of sewage proper, that is, the washing and cooking water
of the household, should be  kept distinct and treated separately
by towns, and I therefore again urged the Council to  consider the
whole subject.  Conjointly with this, the difficulty of  disposing of
the night soil, the inefficient manner in which the emptying of the
cesspools was performed, and the increasing demands of the con-
tractor compelled the Council to give more  attention to the ques-
      12 
176
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
tion, and in  October,  1868, the  recommendation of 1865 was
considered, and in the following December the Council appointed
Alderman Mansell (who was Mayor and Chairman of the Night-
soil Committee), Alderman Taylor, and Councillors Schofield and
Booth, to be a committee to arrange for a trial of several methods
proposed, By which the night soil should be removed.  In  June,
1869, this  committee engaged Mr. J. Havercough, our present
manager, to superintend the removal of the night soil and its
manufacture into  a manure.   The methods  decided  to be tried
were the Goux system, the ash system, and the pail system.  After
a nine months' full  trial, the Council, on  the  recommendation  of
the committee, decided that the pail, now known as the  " Roch-
dale System,"  was the best.
  What then is the Rochdale system ?
  The answer  may be given in a few sentences :
  1st. That the excreta and  refuse of a household shall be re-
moved within  a week.
  2d. That the household  shall have  no care or trouble  thrown
upon it.
  3d. That the collection be made  in pails, not unwieldly, yet  of
sufficient size to prevent inconvenience from their being too full,
and so constructed that  they may  be  thoroughly cleansed  when
emptied.
  4th. That the whole of that which is collected shall be utilized.
  These propositions, which seven  years ago were looked upon as
chimerical, are now carried out.
  The number of closets at this date in Rochdale is  5,644, and
the excreta contained in these, the refuse, including  ashes from
the house, are  systematically collected weekly, or oftener,  without
any notice being required from the householder, and the whole is
utilized by being made into manure, mortar, cement or fuel.
  The manner of  operation is  as follows : The town is  divided
into six divisions, named A, B, C, D, E and F.  Each division has
its corresponding books, the pages being ruled into thirteen weeks.
In the books every excreta pail and ash tub is entered  in pro-
gressive number, and the street 'recorded into which it is placed.
Vans and ash carts  are appropriated for the collection, and the
guard is furnished every morning with the names  of  the  streets
and the number of closets in that street, written on a ruled blank
list, which he has to collect.   When the  van or cart returns, it is
weighed, and the  list given to the weigh clerk, in the ruled squares 
EVIL AND REMEDY OF THE PRIVY SYSTEM.          177
of which the guard has entered the pail or ash-tub number which
he has brought in.  The van is then  emptied, the washer  of the
pails taking an account of the  total number  brought in by each
van.  An inspector daily enters from  these lists into the division
book, the numbers of the pails brought in, and is thus able to say
at the close of the week if every closet has been attended to, and
if not, a van is  specially sent for the pail omitted.  It is found
that, with this oversight, the number  omitted collecting in regu-
lar order has not exceeded thirteen per week.
  The pails are  thoroughly washed, and into each is put a portion
of chloride of  alumina and sulphate of lime.  The  excreta  is
emptied from the pails into a trench formed  of fine ash, which
has been sifted from the refuse and cinders collected by the ash
cart.  A quantity of sulphuric  acid, thirty pounds to one ton  of
excreta,  is poured into the trench, and the whole mixed.   In three
days the trench  is turned over with a spade, and again in twenty-
one days, by which time the whole will have become in a tolerably
dry state, containing about thirty-five per cent, of water.  Before
the sale of  the manure it is again turned over and screened.  The
quantity of excreta to ash used at present is seven cwt. of ash  to
one ton of  excreta.
  The area from which the collection is made is 4,136 acres, and
the distance to  the manufactory is, in direct line, from the north,
one and a half miles ; from the south, one and a half miles ; from
the east, one mile, and from the west, one and three-quarter miles.
When this  site was fixed upon the boundary of the borough was
regular,  being an exact circle of three-fourth  mile radius. The
borough was extended in August, 1872.  The extension has very
considerably disturbed our operations, and increased the costs  of
the whole work. Three convenient sites would much lessen the
cost of  carting, and the cost of manufacture would  be  but
minutely increased.
  That the inhabitants approve of the system is apparent from
the steady increase in the number of pails used.  In the first year
there were  527 pail  closets ; in the  second year, 1,070 ;  in the
third, 1,699 ; in  the fourth, 2,509 ; in the fifth, 3,980 ; in the sixth,
4,741, and this year at this date, 5,644, and in no case  has legal
means been taken to oblige alterations.  From the acknowledged
advantao-es the  corporation  will doubtless compel the  whole  of
the remainder of the old privies—which  are now 2,786 in num-
ber__to be  altered to  the pail system,  if such compulsion be ever 
178
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
required, but from the present aspect in two or three  years the
whole will have been altered independently of the corporation.
  There is another mode of ascertaining the value of the pail sys-
tem, if the subject be looked at from the stand-point of seven years
ago.  At that time the whole of our Lancashire and Yorkshire
towns were on what is called the Lancashire privy  system, and a
terrible nuisance that was found to be.  What is the state  now ?
Manchester, Oldham, Warrington, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Hali-
fax and other towns in  the country  have, more or less, adopted
the Rochdale system of collection, that is, by the use  of conve-
nient pails.  Certainly, some have added what were supposed to
be improvements, such  as the addition of ashes and lining the
pails, but there needs no great foresight to see that they will be
obliged to come to the pail, pure  and simple.   Indeed, there is
not a method adopted in any of the  towns that was not carefully
experimented upon in Rochdale, and abandoned because of its
unsuitableness  to a town's requirements.
                LFrom the Journal of the Society of Arts, May 26, 1876, p. 662.
            THE  GOUX ABSORBENT SYSTEM.
                      BY THOMAS MASON.
  A tapering tub or container is provided, say sixteen and a half
inches high and twenty inches at its greatest diameter.  Upon the
bottom of the tub is placed three or four inches of refuse, such as
new  stable litter, loft sweepings, stack  bottoms, ferns, shavings,
sawdust,  shoddy, flax dressings, speutan or hops, or  the various
waste materials tp  be found in town or country ;  this  is mixed
with a little  soot, charcoal, gypsum or other deodorizer for the
purpose of packing or lining the tub.  A mould of the same shape
as the tubs,  but six inches less  than the internal  diameter, is
placed upon the four inches of absorbent material referred to, and
the space between the mould and the tub is packed with the same
kind of refuse.   One boy can  pack eighty tubs in an hour, and
this is all the manipulation required, except placing and removing
the tub  at stated times.  The absorbent material having  been
only moderately pressed down, the mould is withdrawn, and there
remains a cavity into which the dejections fall, the liquid parts of 
EVIL  AND REMEDY OF THE PRIVY SYSTEM.
179
 which are taken up by the absorbents, and  retained by them so
 as to  check fermentation.
   That the  Goux system is generally  applicable is proven by its
 having been five years in use in private houses, unions, hospitals,
 schools, factories, prisons, camps, villages and large  and small
 towns.  It  is in use at Aldershot Camp, Sherness, Woolwich and
 elsewhere for the war office,  and the company is in treaty with
 the government for its introduction at other places.   This system
 of collection is adopted by the sanitary authority of  Halstead, in
 Essex, and  worked by their own men  under the supervision of
 Mr. Matthews, the town  surveyor, who asserts that it pays for the
 collection, reduces  the  cost of the water supply, and generally
 improves the health  of  the town.
   The villages of Townley, Mickley, Stella, Prudhoe, Walbottle
 and Seaton  Delavel have also  the Goux system in use, and the
 agent to an  estate in the  latter place, after seeing  the good effect
 it had upon the health of the residents, and the fertilizing prop-
 erties of the manure, ordered  350 sets, and  the same number of
 new closets or privies.  These were placed at only eight feet from
 the doors of the houses without causing any nuisance.
   In the year 1870 the Goux system was first introduced into the
 town of Halifax, in Yorkshire, and, although  no pressure has been
 put on the property owners, more than 3,000 of these closets are
 now in use.   The health  of the town during  the period from  1870
 to 1875 is shown on the maps before you, which have been prepared
 by Dr. Haviland, the  well-known author  of  " The Geography of
 Disease." The deepest red shows  the  maximum of health, and
 the deepest  blue the greatest intensity of disease, and the various
 tints show the different  gradations.
   From the  figures on the maps you  will notice  the remarkable
 manner in which the extension of the Goux  system has coincided
 with the advancement of the health  of  the town.   I need  not
 weary  you by reading the figures.   If  these do not give proof
positive of the value of the system, they at least use  strong  pre-
sumptive evidence that  the "Goux" has exercised  a beneficial
influence on the  health  of the town of Halifax. 
180
THE EPIDEMIC  AT  SAVANNAH.
          [From the Journal of the Society of Arts, May 26, 1876, p. 664.]
     THE PAN AND PAIL SYSTEM IN EDINBURGH.
                        BY ADAM SCOTT.

THE EFFECT ON THE PUBLIC HEALTH OF  THE PAIL SYSTEM  AND WATER
                   CLOSET  SYSTEM CONTRASTED.
  The following  interesting statement is made  by Dr. Henry
Littlejohn, the Medical Officer of Health for Edinburgh.  It ap-
pears in a report  upon the Liernur system made to the corpora-
tion of the city of  London  by their engineer, Lieutenant-Colonel
Haywood :
  " Edinburgh consists of two distinct towns, and  old and a new,
but with very different populations.  The  new town is inhabited
by the  better classes, and  is pre-eminently a water-closet town,
whereas the old town consists for the  most part of strongly built
tenements, which, in the process of  years, have  undergone re-
peated sub-divisions, until  individual  rooms, by means of partit-
ions, are found to contain several families.
  " It has been found impracticable to supply these tenants with
ordinary water-closet accommodation, and to  this day they have
to make use of pails for the reception  of the excreta of those con-
fined to  the house.  These pails are  brought to the street daily,
and emptied into carts provided  by  the authorities.
  " The  authorities  have also provided numerous public privies,
which are daily cleansed  by scavengers, and the contents of these
pails and pans add largely to the  value of the refuse  of the city
of Edinburgh.  From a  return made to the corporation in 1874,
I find that 41,613  houses were examined.   Of these, 27,294 had
water-closets, and  14,319 [population about 70,000] none.  The
latter mainly constitute the worst part of  the  old  town of Edin-
burgh.  Some notion may  be formed of the nature of the house
accommodation when it is stated  that of these 14.319  houses, no
less than 13,506 were rented under £12.
  " From this state of things—the low morality  of the popula-
tion, the bad ventilation, the crowding together, and  the reten-
tion  of the filth in  the  lining rooms for  the greater part of the
day, it might naturally have been imagined that typhoid and dip-
theria were endemic in the old town.   This is not the case, how-
ever, for, despite the surrounding  circumstances,  these diseases
may practically be said to be  unknown.
  "In the new and water-closeted town, however, the case  is 
             EVIL  AND REMEDY OF THE  PRIVY SYSTEM.          181

quite different; typhoid  and diptheria are never entirely absent,
are frequently epidemic,  and it has been noticed that the ravages
of these diseases have been the greatest in the best houses."
  I  may add to this  that the water supply in both towns is the
same,  that the  corporation  have, as opportunity offered, intro-
duced  water-closets into various houses as improvements upon
the old arrangements.  Dr.  Littlejohn states that whenever this
has been done typhoid fever or diptheria has invariably broken
out within six or nine months, end Dr. Murchison, in the second
edition of  his book on  " Fever," page 444, states  that typhoid
fever was unknown in Edinburgh until its sanitary arrangements
were altered.
  The  lesson which this teaches is, that any system of removal
cannot be  sanitary  unless, by it, in the words of Mr. Simon,  all
the excremental produce of a population is so promptly and so
thoroughly removed that the inhabited place, in its air and soil}
shall be absolutely without facal impurities.
          [From the Journal of the Society of Arts, May 26, 1876, p. 664.]
EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW  WATER-FLUSHING  SYS-
                            TEMS.
                         BY ADAM SCOTT.
  Dr. Fergus, the President of the Health Section of the Glas-
gow Philosophical  Society, was, I  believe, the first to point  out
the startling fact that, according to the returns of  the Registrar-
General, the death rate in this country  from cholera, diarrhoae,
and dysentery, which are recognized as diseases all more or less
arising  from excremental pollution of  air,  soil or  water,  was
nearly four times what it was thirty-five years ago.  The figures
are as follows :
                                                Deaths per million
                                                   per annum.
      Mean of five years, 1S38--42......•  ■......298
      Mean of five years, 1867-71.....•.........1,161
  During these years there was no epidemic to disturb the nor-
mal rate, and typhoid fever, which sickens 150,000 each year,  and
which is recognized  to  be solely an excremental  disease, is not
included in the above figures, as until lately the deaths from  this
cause were not separated from  those arising from other fevers. 
 182               THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.

   Up to the present time neither the government nor any scien-
 tific association has  ever  instituted an inquiry  into this  subject.
 Of its importance, no one can have the least doubt, as the question
 involved is whether the great so-called sanitary  movement of the
 last thirty years, which is every day extending, is really a sanitary
 movement, or the reverse, and my object in writing this paper is to
 induce the Society of Arts to undertake an open and comprehen-
 sive inquiry into the matter.
   The figures  obtained from the Registrar-General's  return fur-
 nish in themselves a prima facie case that justifies such  an inquiry >
 but as facts regarding individual towns, which facts are not gen-
 erally known,  can be brought forward in support of the argument
 founded on such figures, it is important that  this should be done.
   With regard to Glasgow. I may state the fact that in the period
 1838-1842, typhoid fever was simply unknown in that town.  My
 authority for  the  statement  is Dr. A.  P.  Stewart,  the  eminent
 physician of Grosvenor street, who  at the time was engaged in
 the Glasgow Hospital.  Dr. Stewart is an  authority upon typhoid
 fever, for it may be remembered that he  was one of the  first to
 point out the difference between it  and  typhus, at the  time when
 these diseases  were supposed to be identical.   Dr. Stewart, to
 whom I am permitted to  refer, states that typhoid cases  did ap-
 pear in the hospital, but in every case they came in for treatment
 from Campsie, a place ten miles off.   In Glasgow itself the disease
 was unknown, nor did it appear until the sanitary  arrangements
 of the town began to be altered.  Since then that fearful  disease
 has never left the town.  The following statements, made by the
 late medical officer  of Glasgow at two  different  periods,  are in-
 structive :
   " It was accurately  stated that the evils inseparable from the
 water closet system were likely to be less felt in  Glasgow than in
 many other places, owing to the considerable fall of the greater
 number of sewers, and the almost unlimited  supply of water by
 which the matter is diluted.
   " It has been  conclusively  shown that houses presumed to be
beyond  suspicion of  any possible  danger to health  from  this
cause—houses in which  the* most skillful engineers and architects
had, as they believed, exhausted the resources of modern sanitary
sciences—have, nevertheless, been exposed in  a high degree to the
diseases from air in contact with the products of decomposition
in sewers, and this for a very obvious reason. Such houses  are 
EVIL  AND REMEDY OF THE PRIVY  SYSTEM.         183
 usually built on high  levels, when the drains have a very rapid
 fall."
   Dr. Stewart also mentions that in Edinburgh typhoid fever was
 unknown, and  this is  confirmed by the writings of the late Prof.
 Reid, of St. Andrew's, who remarks that, like as in Glasgow, the
 only cases were those not originating in the town, but which were
 brought in for  treatment in the infirmary from the county of Fife.
 I find this is also confirmed by Dr. Murchison in the second edition
 of his book upon " Fever," pages 443-4, in which he  states that
 typhoid fever did not exist in Edinburgh until the alteration in its
 sanitary arrangements took place. As to  its prevalence now, the
 following statement made this  year by  the  Medical Officer of
 Health, tells its own tale :
   " In the new and  water-closeted town  of Edinburgh, typhoid
 and diphtheria are never entirely absent, and are frequently epi-
 demic, and it has been noticed that the ravages of  these  diseases
 have been the greatest in  the best houses."
   Can  anything  be more striking than  the fact which  he also
 states  (see pan and pail system  in Edinburgh  on  another page)
 that in  certain districts containing 14,319 houses (or, at five per-
 sons a house, 70,000 people), where  the  sanitary arrangements
 were never  changed, typhoid  and  diphtheria are to this  day
 unknown.
   The water supply in Edinburgh for the districts afflicted and
 not afflicted with the typhoid, is derived from the same sources.
 The sewage is partly disposed of  in irrigation fields, partly carried
 out to sea and  partly discharged  into a small burn.   The fall of
. the  sewers  is great, the  whole town being built on high ground.
 In Glasgow the sewers are of very rapid fall, are nowhere of  any
 great extent, but run direct into the river that passes through the
 town, and they are flushed by the enormous quantity of fifty-three
 gallons of water per head per day.  The water, which comes from
 Loch Katrine,  is above suspicion.
   The sewers in both towns, as in the case of every town in the
 kingdom, allow precolation  of sewage into the subsoil  and the
 formation of  sewage  gas, and the house drains, like the house
 drains of all other towns  in the kingdom, are frequently imper-
 fect, and also allow free access of the sewage to the soil.  It may
 be that if the sewers were made impervious, and the house drains
 also made perfect, and of impervious material—it may  be that
 then, but not till then, excremental matter might be safely flushed 
184
THE EPIDEMIC AT SAVANNAH.
into them.  This simply means that every sewer in the kingdom
should be  rebuilt and every drain examined, and  in  most cases
relaid.  As a system of perfect sewers and drains, however, comes
under the head of "systems not yet tried," I suppose it must not
be discussed.   Meanwhile we may well  assert that the  great prin-
ciple  which the sanitariau should  advocate, in  regard to water-
flushing  towns, is that  the filth, which is  the  cause  of disease,
should be  utterly  excluded  from  those imperfect sewers and
drains which  allow of  pollution of air, soil and water, and should
be removed in such  a  manner  that none of these  three elements
should be tainted with excremental refuse.  In this alone lies the
first great principle  of safety.
         [From the Journal of the Society of Arts, May 26,1876, p. 665.]
THE MUNICH SEWERS, AS ILLUSTRATING HOW THE
  SUBSOIL  AND  SUBSOIL WATER  OF  TOWNS  ARE
  POLLUTED BY SEWAGE.
                     BY CAPTAIN LIERNUR.
  The fluid mass in sewers  does not flow away  without infecting
the soil in which they are built simply because no masonry can con-
tain it.  The chemical action of water upon mortar has been repeat-
edly ignored or denied by eminent sewer builders (they can be no
engineers).  They ascribe the percolation of sewage to bad ma-
terials, bad sectional profiles, insufficient  gradients, or to crevices
caused by subsidence, etc.  They say, " build really good  sewers
of the best material, keep up a constant flow in them, and there
will be no fear of percolation."
  But as it always happens, when scientific truth has been tempo-
rarily silenced through the noisy violence of ignorance or interest
(too often taken as a test of the correctness of judgment of so-
called "practical" men), experience  has also  corroborated its
dicta.  She has shown  that the very best  kind of  sewers,  con-
structed by the very ablest of that  class of engineers, with all the
care and skill they could muster, become  in a short  time  as a
leaky basket, and  impart to the soil a great deal of the  putrid*
fluid passing through them. 
EVIL AND REMEDY OF THE PRIVY SYSTEM.         185
         [From the Journal of the Society of Arts, May 18, 1877, p. 621.]
THE PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE OF THE DRY SYSTEM,
  SHOWN  BY  THE  USE OF  MOSER'S  CLOSETS IN A
  SMALL DISTRICT, FOR TWO AND A QUARTER YEARS.

    BY ALFRED CARPENTER, M. D., (LONDON), C S. S., (CAMBRIDGE).
  It may interest the conference  to have laid  before  them  the
practical facts connected with the application of ash  closets in a
small district.
  It is well known that  Croydon is  drained in the ordinary way;
that is, more or less imperfectly, but there are small areas which
are not sewered  at all.  Among these, is the hamlet of Waddon;
it  lies between  Beddington  and  the southwestern  part of  the
parish of Croydon.   It  is a district in which  the water line is
constantly changing, according to the requirements of  the miller
who works the water mill, which has existed  from time immemo-
rial at the confluence of the several  small streams which give  rise
to the river Wandle.  The occupiers of some of the fields close
to the hamlet have also  the right to dam up the Wandle, and  use
it  as a sheep wash, and  also the right to irrigate  the pastures
themselves.   The result  of the maintenance of these rights is,
that the subsoil is generally water-logged, water existing within a
few  inches of the surface of  the ground.  Notwithstanding this
state of things, a number of cottages were built on a part of this
land close to the left bank of the principal stream  of  the Wandle.
When the plans  were  first  deposited by the speculators who pro-
posed to erect these houses, there  was no law by which they  could
be compelled to provide a dry basement.   Application  was made
by the builders to the local authority to sewer that district at  the
public expense, but the local board declined to do it except at  the
expense of the owners.  It was contended by the writer that  the
rate-payers of the parish ought not  to be called  upon  to turn a
swamp into building land for the benefit of  speculators.  Never-
theless, the houses  were  built, and  immediately  occupied  by a
swarm of  poor.  The  result, which  was predicted  when  the
plans were deposited witji  the local board, soon came to pass-
The inhabitants  suffered  continually from the effects of enthetic
disease.  Scarlatina, diphtheria and fever were  constant visitors.
The neighbors then began to complain.  Many deaths occurred.
The stench from the continually overflowing cesspools was plainly
perceptible in the public roads, and great pressure was brought 
186
THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.
to bear upon the local authority to compel them to sewer the dis-
trict, at an expense almost  equal  to  the  value  of the cottages
themselves.   But it appeared to the writer that to put sewers into
such a district would be a sanitary mistake.  At least one-half  of
the time they would be waterlogged, and be the means  of retain-
ing mischief in close proximity to the houses instead of  conveying
it away.  It appeared that, before sewering the district, the water
line should be permanently lowered, that the owners should  give
up  the right to flood the neighborhood, and thus make the land
fit for building purposes, before the local authority provided sew-
ers for the sewage.  There was also another consideration in the
case.  The sewage from these cottages would have to be conveyed
to Beddington sewage farm.  There would then  be a twelve-inch
sewer, constantly discharging subsoil water instead of sewage
upon a farm which already receives more subsoil water  than  it is
entitled to.   The owners refused  to do this duty, and  it was left
to the sanitary committee of the Croyden Local Board  of Health
to devise a remedy for the insanitary state  of the hamlet, which
state the law had allowed to grow up close to our own  noses and
in spite of our protests.  The  year  1874 was a  very fatal one to
the inhabitants of the  cottages.   The owners did not—indeed,
they could not—empty the cesspools which had been constructed,
and it was evident that something must be done.  The property
had  changed hands, and the new owners were willing to do what
the sanitary committee recommended.  The writer had been much
struck  with the  simplicity and cheapness  of Moser's  closets, as
exhibited at the Social Science Congress at Glasgow in  1874, and
ultimately twenty closets were erected by Mr. Moser, at a cost  to
the owners  of something under £3 per closet.  They  were com-
pleted December 24th, 1874.  The cottages are in a block close to
the road, and about one-third of  a mile from the outfall sewer,
near to which the town refuse of the Croydon district is conveyed.
It was agreed with the owners that they should erect the closets,
but that the Croydon Local Board should collect the refuse, and
supply the hoppers with dry ashes and the pails with sawdust as
often  as should be necessary.  The  whole of the arrangements
were  carried  out, and  have since been  superintended by Mr.
Mitchell, the sanitary inspector  of the Croydon Local Board of
Health, and I learn from him  the following results:  He states
that, whereas  serious illness always  prevailed  in  those  houses
before the erection of  the closets, there has been very little since> 
EVIL AND REMEDY OF THE  PRIVY SYSTEM.          187
and scarcely any of that class of disease which formerly visited
them ; that the houses, instead of being pest houses to the neigh-
borhood, are now  perfectly healthy.  It is also  stated in Dr-
Buchanan's report upon the epidemic of fever which visited Croy-
don in 1875 that these cottages at Waddon altogether  escaped.
         [From the Journal of the Society of Arts, June 16, 1876, p. 755,]
                    FOREIGN SYSTEMS.
                          FLORENCE.
  Mr. C. N. Cresswell said he was in a position to give the con-
ference  some interesting information with reference to the city of
Florence.  Ten years ago  he was engaged in  negotiating a con-
cession for improving and enlarging the city of Florence  just at
the time it was made the capital of the kingdom of Italy.
  The houses were to be drained into cesspools, to be constructed
under the superintendence of the authorities.  It was  necessary
that he should explain to  the meeting the construction of these
cesspools and the mode of emptying them.  Every cesspool  was
designed  and built  upon a system approved by the  municipal
engineers, and subject to their supervision, the size being fixed in
proportion to  the number of inmates resident in each block of
buildings.  It was air and  water-tight, and provided with a  suc-
tion pipe inserted at the bottom, and also a tube from the arched
roof of the cistern,  carried  up to the level of the surface similar
to an ordinary water main.  These cesspools were  periodically
emptied  by the municipal employes by means  of an air-tight tum-
brel, connected with an exhaust pipe, and drawn upon wheels to
the spot where it was required between the hours of one and  four
o'clock in the morning.   The process was as follows:  The air was
exhausted in the tumbrel sufficiently to produce a partial vacuum;
the hose was then attached by a nozzle screw to the' suction tube
before  mentioned, the air pipe was opened to let in the outer air,
and, by  atmospheric pressure,  the  cesspools  were emptied  in a
minute and a half.   The contents are sold for the benefit  of  the
municipality to  the  farmers in the vicinity, who  compete eagerly
for the privilege, and use this sewage to fertilize the  vine, fig and
olive gardens, which abound in the highly cultivated valley of the 
188
THE EPIDEMIC  AT SAVANNAH.
Arno.  Mr. Cresswell mentioned that the Italians were great con-
sumers of vegetable food, and that the kitchen slop waters  were
also carried into cesspools by means of pipes, well trapped to pre-
vent the  escape of gases into the sculleries, which, in  Italian
houses, were on the same floor as the  drawing room.   This ren-
dered it  the more imperative to take precautions against a  nuis-
ance of which Italian noses are peculiarly sensitive.  He stated
that the pneumatic scavenging cars were supplied by the munici-
pality, and that, partly from the unpopularity of the Grand Duke
of Tuscany at  the time of their introduction, and partly from the
pungent odor which surrounded them, they were styled the Grand
Duke's snuff-boxes.  The value of  the contents of the Florentine
cesspools was  estimated  so  highly by the neighboring farmers
that they stipulated  eagerly for the privilege  of  emptying  them
at an annual  rent varying  from £3  to  £7 per year for  each
cesspool.   The lessors of  the company's offices  justified the  high
rent demanded for the premises occupied by them in Via del Gig-
lio by the fact that  the  garden surrounding them possessed the
special advantage of  three large cesspools, which would be worth
at least from £15 to £20 per annum to the proprietors.   In con-
clusion, Mr. Cresswell said that he was not prepared to give any
statistical data as to the death rate of Florence, but  that  during
the last two visitations of cholera, while the  neighboring towns
were decimated by that scourge, Florence had  altogether escaped
the epidemic. 
SUPPLEMENT TO THE MAYOR'S REPORT, JANUARY 1,1879.
THE
ER
DEMISTS A VAlji
x)
           1876.    j

ITS CAUSES-THE MEASURES OF PREVENTION,
   ADOPTED BY THE MUNICIPALITY DURING

THE ADMINISTRATION OF HON. .1. F. WHEATON, MAYOR.
BY JAMES J. WARING,
  CHAIRMAN DRY CULTURE COMMITTEE.
   SAVANNAH. GA.:
MORNING NEWS STEAM PRINTING HOUSE,
     1879. 
 
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