Evidences of the Importation of the Pestilential or Yel­low Fever into this country at different times.

The disease called in the English West India islands and in America the yellow fever, and in the French islands the maladie de Siam, is said by re­spectable authority to have made its first appearance at Fort St. Pierre, Martinique, an island in the West Indies, in the year 1687,^* soon after the arrival of a French fleet at that port from the king­dom of Siam in the East Indies.^† From Martinique the malady was imported by some commissioned ships into St. Christopher's and into Hispaniola or St. Domingo, where it occasioned great mortality. In Port de Paix and several other places it destroy­ed such numbers, that the king of France published an edict, ordering all vessels coming from Martinico to perform quarantine. And in the year 1708, penal laws were made, inflicting the punishment of death upon any seaman or passenger from those islands that should land in any part of France with­out legal examination and permit.

It is related in Hutchinson's History of New-England, vol. ii. p. 72,—"that Admiral Sir Fran­cis [Page 35] Wheeler was sent with a fleet to invade and conquer Martinique, but his men were seized with a malignant fever which destroyed three-fourths of them; in consequence of this the fleet sailed to Boston and introduced the disease into that town, where it occasioned dreadful mortality." From this account, however, it cannot be ascertained whether this was the yellow fever or the common putrid fever.

The first appearance of the yellow fever in Bar­badoes, of which any account is recorded or handed down by popular tradition, was in the year 1691; at which time the Rev. Griffith Hughes (Nat. Hist. Barbad.) says it was called the New Distemper, and afterwards Kendal's fever, the pestilential fe­ver, and the bilious fever.

Dr. Warren, who resided in Barbadoes, and published a treatise on the disease in 1739, as­serts, "that it was introduced into Barbadoes from Martinique by the Lynn man of war, in the year 1723, and from the same place ten years after by a vessel, the surgeon of which, Mr. Nelson, was sick on the passage, and died a few days after his arrival at Barbadoes." Dr. Warren adds, "The fever had broke out, as he was informed by Mr. Nelson and others, at Port St. Pierre, soon after the arrival of a provençal fleet from Marseilles."

[Page 36] "This distemper," says Dr. Warren, "cannot be reasonably attributed to any corruption of the air that arises from lakes, marshes or woods, be­cause the land in this island is the best cultivated, and entirely free from lakes or marshes, and, un­fortunately for the inhabitants, there is not a suffi­ciency of wood on it for fuel; but it is agreeably diversified with hills and risings, on the very tops of which the best canes grow. The air here is al­so remarkably pure and fresh, and probably more salubrious than in any of the other sugar colonies."

Before the introduction of the disease first men­tioned by this author, into the island, he says he had for seven or eight years paid particular atten­tion to the effects produced on health by the dif­ferent seasons and state of the weather; during which time some years had been distinguished for sultry heats and long intolerable droughts, some by almost incessant rains, and several by unsettled and tempestuous weather, and yet no footsteps of this fever did appear in all that time. He has frequent­ly observed, that a continuation of dry and hot weather has been so far from giving any aggrava­tion to the contagion, that it has seemed rather to repress it, till the returning rains and a moist at­mosphere have renewed its activity.

Dr. Warren proceeds, "The reader may judge as he thinks fit of this account of the origin of this [Page 37] disease. I am satisfied that it was introduced among us the two last times in the manner described; and that it is not by any means the natural growth of this island, but truly a foreign intruder, let the first causes of it be what or from whence they may."

This author asserts, that "intermitting fevers are rarely, if ever, the product of Barbadoes, let the weather vary ever so much, though continued fevers upon their going off, sometimes put on the appearance of intermittents, and persons with agues are often brought here from some of the other islands."

"In some of the other islands, where the har­bours are muddy and the adjacent ground low and wet, the natives as well as strangers, are in an emi­nent degree, subject to intermittents and remittents, resembling double tertians, which are frequently obstinate and irregular, but which with due pre­paration and precautions submit at length to the bark." In another place he says, "bark did no good in the malignant fever. And that the island had not been entirely exempt from the malignant fever from the year 1733 to 1739, the time his treatise was written." And we know from the publications of Drs. Hume and Wright, that it proved destructive to the crews of Admiral Ver­non's fleet, in the year 1741.

[Page 38] In a pamphlet, entitled, a Discourse on the Plague, published in London, in the year 1721, it is related, that "a pestilential fever was introduced into Virginia in the year 1697, by Admiral Nevill's squadron, which arrived there from the West Indies."

The first occurrence of the yellow fever in Phila­delphia, of which there is any record, or recollec­tion, was in the year 1699. This fever is men­tioned in the Journal of Thomas Story, recorder of the city, who says, "six or eight persons died of it daily for several weeks, and some days ten or twelve."

From an anecdote respecting Roger Gill, a noted preacher of the Friends society (who prayed in public that he might be accepted as a sacrifice and the people spared) it appears the fever at that time was most general and mortal, the last week in September. And from the register of deaths kept by the meeting, it appears to have entirely ceased before the 1st of November. The city at that time contained but about 600 families, of course its population must have been greatly re­duced by the mortality.

In a letter from Isaac Norris, Esq. quoted by Mr. Webster, dated August 15th, 1699, the disease prevalent at that time in Philadelphia, is called the [Page 39] "Barbadoes distemper." And John Gough, in his History of the Friends (Vol. iii. p. 516) says, "the disease which raged in Philadelphia, in the year 1699, was the same as that which has since been called the yellow fever, which had been very mortal in the West India islands for a considerable time before it made its appearance in Philadelphia. The disease also prevailed the same year in Charles­ton, South Carolina."^*

Mr. Story, in the 2d vol. of his Journal, has re­corded, "that 17 persons lay dead of a malignant fever in the city of New York, on the 1st of Sep­tember (N. S.) in the year 1702."

The late Dr. Thomas Bond of Philadelphia, in an introductory lecture to a clinical course, in the Pennsylvania hospital, the 3d of Decem­ber in the year 1766, speaking of the effects of cli­mate, in influencing and modifying the appearance and violence of diseases, delivered the following facts and opinions, viz.

A letter written by the late Dr. John Bard of New-York, and published in the American Muse­um for 1788, page 453, contains the following information on this subject, viz.

"I have heard from the ancient inhabitants of this city, that so long ago as the year 1702, a malignant fever little inferior to a plague was im­ported into it, which, from its extreme mortality, was distinguished by the name of the Great Sick­ness; and that if tradition says true, was brought here from St. Thomas's, in a single bale of cotton." That fatal distemper, adds Dr. Bard, "called the yellow fever or black vomit, which, about 40 years ago produced its ravages in several parts of this continent, particularly in the cities of Philadelphia and New-York, was first imported from the Spanish Main into Barbadoes, and from that island in the [Page 43] course of commerce, communicated to this con­tinent.

"The cities of New-York and Philadelphia, have several times experienced the fatal effects of dangerous infections, some of them resembling the jail fever, from dirty ships, crowded with dirty pas­sengers, from Rotterdam, which from that cause took the name of the palatine fever."

At that time there was no legal provision against those dangers: vessels with this load of impurity came immediately up to the wharves and the sick were landed in the town. The legislature of New-York have since passed a law for preventing the in­troduction of diseases into that city; but laws will be of no avail unless they are enforced with rigor and impartiality.

We are informed by Dr. Lind, in his 2d paper on infection, that he had received information from a gentleman in Philadelphia, who had been a sufferer by the disease, "that the yellow fever was introduced into that city, in the year 1741, by means of a trunk of wearing apparel belonging to a gentleman who had died of the fever in Barba­does, and that it proved mortal to more than two hundred of the inhabitants."

[Page 44] Dr. Lining of Charleston, in a letter to Dr. Whytt, published in the 2d vol. of the Physical and Literary Essays of Edinburgh, gives an ac­count of the occurrence of the yellow fever in that city, in the years 1732, 1739, 1745 and 1748, and asserts, "that it had been traced to some persons or vessel lately arrived from some of the West India islands, every time that it had occurred there." Dr. Lining also adds, "that some of the seasons in which it had been epidemic or general were more cool and salutary than many that had preceded or intervened, in which the disease had not appeared at all."

Dr. Mitchel of Virginia, in a letter to Dr. B. Franklin, informs him, "that a malignant contagi­ous fever, (which from his description appears to have been the yellow fever) was prevalent in cer­tain parts of that state, in the years 1737 and 1741, and that it originated from an infection sui generis, and had been twice brought into those parts by ships of war which sailed in those seas."

From the year 1747, when it was again partially epidemic in Philadelphia and New-York, as appears from letters which have been preserved by some of their inhabitants, Philadelphia was exempt from it till the year 1762, when, according to the notes of Dr. Redman, president of the College of Physi­cians, which were communicated to the College in [Page 45] 1793, it was imported from Havanna, and com­municated by a sick sailor to the family with whom he lodged near the New Market, in the lower end of the city, and from that family to others in suc­cession, till it pervaded nearly one half of the city, particularly that part below the great dock and ca­nal, which at that time was neither arched nor drained. It then ceased of a sudden, about the middle of October, and was no more heard of in any of the states, till the year 1793.

For an account of the prevalence of the disease in Philadelphia in the years 1793, 1797 and 1798, the reader is requested to consult the late publica­tion of the College of Physicians, entitled, "Facts and Observations on the Origin and Nature of the Pestilential or Yellow Fever," &c. in which he will find the importation of the disease proved by the most positive and undeniable testimony.

Dr. Monson, of New Haven, (a physician of re­spectability and eminence) in his printed account of the yellow fever which occurred in that town in June 1794, and became epidemic, relates, "that Captain Truman arrived there early in June from Martinique, in a sloop that was infected with the contagion of the yellow fever, and laid at a wharf within a few rods of Isaac Gorham's house; and that a chest of wearing apparel, belonging to a man who had died on board the vessel at Marti­nique, [Page 46] was carried from the vessel to Mr. Austin's store, and opened in the presence of Captain Tru­man, Mr. Austin, Henry Hubbard and Polly Gor­ham, the three last of whom were infected and died in a few days after their exposure to the contents of the chest. No person in the town was known to have had the yellow fever previous to the arrival of Captain Truman's vessel." Dr. Monson asserts, "he could trace every case that occurred to conta­gion; and that, of 64 patients which was the number that died of this disease, 44 had black vo­miting." See Webster's Collection.

In a subsequent letter, Dr. Monson says, he was for a considerable time at a loss to account for the case of a child who took the disease, as it could not be discovered that it had been exposed to any source of contagion. But a man, after the termi­nation of the disease, who had been employed as a nurse to those in the fever, informed the family that he had taken it up in the street and carried it into the house, to prevent it from being hurt, un­perceived by any of the family.

By what means the disease was introduced into Baltimore in the year 1794, or into Norfolk in the year 1795, I have not been able to collect positive proofs; but from its first appearance at Fell's point, where the shipping lay, and from its gradual progress into other parts of the town, there is a [Page 47] strong presumption it was introduced into Balti­more by one or more infected vessels from the West Indies where it had become before that time almost universal.

The proofs of the introduction of the yellow fever into New-York in the year 1795, by the brig Zephyr, from Port-au-Prince, published by the Board of Health of that city, though controverted by some of the medical gentlemen of that place, are sufficiently authentic and valid to convince any impartial and disinterested inquirer, that it was im­ported that year into New-York by that vessel. Those proofs may be seen in the Philadelphia Gazette, dated September 24th, 1795.

In the year 1796 it appeared and became epi­demic in Boston, and in the town of Chatham on Connecticut river. From whence it originated in Boston has never yet been ascertained; but we are informed by Mr. Webster in his History of Epi­demic and Pestilential Diseases, vol. ii. p. 344, after returning from his researches among revolv­ing planets, blazing comets, exploding volcanoes and wide-yawning earthquakes, to solid ground; "that the fever at Chatham was traced, in every instance, to a vessel from a port in Hispaniola, which was highly infected; and that no person was affected without direct intercourse with the vessel, the clothing or the sick. It was not taken [Page 48] by passing along the street, nor from house to house. It commenced late in September and had no precursors."

Dr. Monson, in a letter to Dr. Hosack of New-York, asserts, "that the yellow fever was not only decidedly and clearly traced to importation at Had­dam in 1796, but also at Newbury-Port in 1797; in the latter place by a vessel which arrived there in the month of May, from one of the ports of the West Indies, on board of which one or more persons had died on her homeward passage." See also Med. Rep. vol. i.^*

The following, among other circumstances, prove that the fever was imported into Philadelphia in the year 1798. The ship Deborah from Jeremie, a port of St. Domingo, arrived at the quarantine station the 8th of July with about 90 persons on board, including passengers. After remaining un­der quarantine ten days, she came up to the city, discharged her cargo, and proceeded to the vil­lage of Kensington to be refitted. It appears by several depositions, particularly by those of Col. Depeyster, who came passenger in her, and Mr. [Page 49] John Boden,^* who served on board in the capacity of carpenter, "that she had lost several of her [Page 50] hands with the yellow fever during her stay at Jeremie, and five on her homeward passage, and three passengers including one child." These were reported at the Health Office to have died with fluxes: and it was declared on oath, that there was no person sick at the time of her arrival at the quaran­tine ground but one black girl, and that she had nothing but a slight fever and lax. But it appears from the books of the Board of Health, that three men were sent from her to the Marine Hospital the very next day after her arrival, one on the 10th, and two on the 11th, with symptoms of yellow fe­ver; [Page 51] and that part of the clothing of the deceased remained on board. The first cases that occurred in the city were traced to persons that had worked on board or had done business with the Deborah. And soon after her arrival at Kensington, which before her arrival was entirely free from the disease, several persons who worked on board of her, and others in the neighbourhood where she lay took the fever; the majority of whom died. The proofs of this are detailed by the College of Phy­sicians at page 41, and are indisputable. To op­pose fanciful speculations and arguments drawn from remote analogies, to facts so clearly and fairly established as these, is not only trifling with our understandings, but is an outrage upon common sense; and as such fanciful speculations have a tendency to support and perpetuate distressing and unavailing apprehensions, and to affect the pros­perity of all the commercial towns in the union, it is a grievance that demands the interference of the federal legislature.

Dr. Tilton of Wilmington says,^* (and Dr. Tilton has been accustomed to make correct observations) "At Wilmington we have no apprehension of do­mestic origin. Every medical character in this place takes it for granted that the disease was imported from Philadelphia, and no otherwise created. It [Page 52] appeared to me also, that infected household goods and furniture, brought from the city by our shal­lops had more influence in spreading the contagion than diseased persons: for it was very remarka­ble, that the disease was not communicated from the first person who died of it, and who came down and sickened it the land stage. But, when the fever became epidemic, it took its rise at the water edge, and infected all, or with few excep­tions, gradually up to High-street. Above this the town is more thinly built, and the cases were solitary as in the country. Although the disease made its appearance among us, in the beginning of August, we hoped for our usual exemption until near the middle of the same month, when the epi­demic nature of it appeared so manifest, that a committee of health was appointed, and a slight hospital arrangement was constructed, for the relief of the poor and necessitous."

Dr. Brackett of Portsmouth (N. Hamp.) in a letter to Dr. Oliver of Salem relates, that "the yellow or pestilential fever made its first appearance in that city about the 1st of August, 1798, eight or ten days after the arrival of a vessel from Marti­nique, on board of which two men had been sick before she left the island, one of whom died on the passage and the other was on the recovery at the time of her arrival at Portsmouth: at which time there was not, nor had been a case of any [Page 53] kind of fever for a long time in that place. On the 1st of August the day the vessel arrived a child of the owner was taken ill with symptoms of cholera, and died on the 4th. On the 3d of Au­gust his brother, 15 years old, was taken with similar symptoms, but with more inflammation and distress. He was bled freely, took calomel, bark, &c. and died on the 5th day from the attack. Be­tween the 8th and 20th of the month, four or five of the other children and servants were taken with the same complaint. One of the daughters, attack­ed on the 17th, and treated with bleeding, mercu­ry, warm bath and bark, died on the 9th day from the attack. She lost a great quantity of blood from her nose and mouth the three days preceding her death. Many other persons were taken ill in the same neighbourhood between the periods just men­tioned, about one half of whom died. I lost 15 out of 45. If I could procure a soreness of the fauces by giving mercury in small doses, and by rubbing it upon the gums, or by external frictions, on the third or fourth day, I was sure of the pa­tient's recovery.—The disease was confined almost entirely to the streets near to the wharf where the vessel lay, and to the beach where she was graved, though those streets are in the highest part of the town, are as free from putrid filth as any other streets in the town, and have always been esteemed the most healthy."

[Page 54] To the facts which have now been stated respect­ing the importation of the yellow fever into this country, and consequently of its being a contagious disease, under certain circumstances, I shall only add one more, lately furnished by Dr. Bayley, physician and inspector of vessels for the port of New York. In a letter from Dr. Bayley to the mayor of New York, published in different papers, it is stated, "that the ship General Wayne sailed from New York on the 14th of April for Havanna, navigated by 25 men under the command of John Seaman. On the 25th of May, whilst lying in the harbour of Havanna, John Brown a sailor died, and John John­son the 1st of June. During the passage of the ship to the port of New York, Jonas Willis sickened, and died on the 14th of June. The ship arrived at the quarantine ground the 22d of June, at which time James Gardner, a seaman, was sick with the Yellow Fever. He was sent to the Marine Hospital and died the next day. On the evening of the 27th of June, Mr. John Wright, a passenger on board the Gen. Wayne, was attacked with the fever, and received into the hospital on the morning of the 28th. In the course of the disease Mr. Wright became very yellow, bled from the month, and had excessive vomiting of matter which was of a dark colour, but recovered."

After remaining at anchor at the quarantine ground 22 days, and having undergone the cere­mony [Page 55] of washing and scrubbing the decks and ven­tilating the hold, without unlading or shifting the cargo, this vessel proceeded to New York, and came alongside of Coentie's slip. Soon after her arrival, several cases of yellow fever occurred in the neighbourhood of that wharf which was perfectly healthy before her arrival. This circumstance con­firming the declaration of Capt. Seaman, the mas­ter of the Gen. Wayne, that she was an infected vessel, which has been stated by Mr. Watkins, one of the owners, in the New York Gazette, exas­perated the inhabitants of that neighbourhood to such a degree that they compelled her removal.

In the year 1793, after an exemption of thirty years, the yellow fever (having first committed great ravages in Granada, Tobago and Antigua, in the last of which the inhabitants depend on the clouds for all the water they use, according to the ac­count published by Dr. Lettsom, in the Gentleman's Magazine,) entered Philadelphia, and raged with uncontroulable fury;—but was epidemic that year in no other town in America.

In 1794, it prevailed in New Haven, Baltimore, and partially in Philadelphia, while all the other seaports in the United States escaped.

In 1795, in New York, Baltimore and Norfolk.

In 1796, in Newbury-Port, Haddam, Boston, and Charleston.

[Page 56] In 1797, in Norfolk, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Bristol, and Providence.

In 1798 it prevailed with unusual mortality in Portsmouth, (N. Hamp.) Boston, New London, (the latter of which is situated on a high, dry and rocky shore, where there is neither marsh nor pond of stagnant water, and of course exempt from putrid vegetable exhalations,) New York, Philadelphia, Chester, Marcus Hook, Wilmington, (Del.) Peters­burgh, and Wilmington, N. C.—And in 1799, in Newbury-Port, New York, Philadelphia, Eden­ton, and Charleston, while Boston, Dover and Bal­timore, and many other towns surrounded with putrid materials escaped.

If this disease originates from the putrid exhala­tions of the streets and gutters, can any man possess­ed of common sense suppose, that the flats of Bal­timore and the towns of Charleston and of Dover could have escaped in 1798, when the less putrid streets of Portsmouth, New London, Boston and Wilmington were thronged with the sick, the dying and the dead? Reference alone to the dates and facts which have now been stated, in conjunction with the circumstance of the disease appearing only in the commercial towns of the United States; one year in the centre, another in the south, a third in the north, and a fourth in the east, while intermediate ones have remained perfectly free [Page 57] from its desolating effects, afford an accumulated weight of testimony in favour of the doctrine of its foreign origin, which it would seem impossible for any mind, however subjugated and bigoted to former opinions, to resist. But that no farther ambiguity may remain, respecting the origin of this dreadful disease, the following facts and arguments are added.

It is asserted by Astruc on Pestilential Diseases; by Sauvages in his Nosologia Methodica; by Des­portes and Dazille, both of whom were physicians of eminence in St. Domingo; and by Mr. Moreau de St. Mery, in his History of the French Part of St. Domingo, page 700, "that the yellow fever was not known in the West Indies till the year 1689, when it was imported into Martinico by a fleet from Siam in the East Indies, hence called the Maladie de Siam. Hughes says it was first observed in Barbadoes in the year 1691: and Ulloa in his Voyage to South America, book i. chap. 5. "that its first appearance on that continent was in the year 1729, and destroyed the greatest part of the crews of the Guarda Costa's at Santa Martha."

This disease has seldom been epidemic in the West Indies, excepting in time of war when fleets and armies have been stationed there: and, if the testimony of Blane and of other respectable authors is to be credited, it was so much confined [Page 58] to the harbours and seaports in the year 1782, that very few medical gentlemen who resided in the country had ever seen a case of it. This circum­stance and other facts contained in Blane's work formerly deceived me so much, that I thought the yellow fever was only a modification of the typhus gravior, or the common malignant fever of ships, &c. but recent observations and more accurate inquiries have convinced me that the [...] are not the same; for the contagion of the [...] in winter within a certain distance [...] diseased, where the air is not frequently renewed, as well or perhaps more certainly than in summer; where­as the operation of the contagion of the latter is confined chiefly to the latter end of sum­mer and to autumn. From the cessation of the revolutionary war in America in 1783 to the year 1793, there were no traces of the disease in either Granada, St. Domingo or Barbadoes; and I have met with no author that has made mention of it in any other of the islands between the periods just mentioned; if there has, I shall be thankful for correction, for my sole aim in this account is to separate truth from error. But early in the year 1793 it made its appearance in the town of St. George, soon after the arrival of the ship Hankey, with a sickly crew from the coast of Guinea; which was on the 17th of February. This fact is estab­lished not only on the respectable testimony of Drs. Chisholm and Wright, but by the public [Page 59] papers of Grenada and Kingston, and by the Lon­don Chronicle, dated October 12th, 1793.

From Grenada the disease was speedily convey­ed to several of the other West India islands in succession, particularly to Tobago, St. Domingo, Guadaloupe, St. Vincents, Antigua, Dominique, Jamaica and Barbadoes; and since to Cuba, &c. According to Dr. Clark, it did not reach Domi­nica till the 12th of June, which was soon after the arrival of a number of refugees from St. Do­mingo; a great portion of whom, contrary to what happened in Philadelphia, were the first affected and the greatest sufferers. In Dominica it was also fa­tal to the Negroes lately arrived from Africa, a circumstance also contrary to the observations of most of the former West India authors.—See Duncan's Annals for 1797.

In Barbadoes it must have been communicated by contagion, and could not have originated there, as there are no sources of intermittents or remit­tents of the mildest form in the whole island, at least not sufficient to render the disease general.—See Hugh's Natural History of the island publish­ed in the year 1750.—Even Antigua which is not only free from marshes, but has neither spring nor rivulet on the whole island, has not escaped this ferocious and destructive disease.

[Page 60] The immense commerce of the United States, and the shortness of the voyage, render the West Indies to them the same source of contagion that the Levant is to Europe.

During the existing war, though the yellow fe­ver has successively pervaded almost all the islands, it has been most severely felt in the French islands Guadaloupe and St. Domingo, which have been the principal scenes of military operations. With those islands the American commerce has been car­ried on to a greater extent than with any of the others; and as the American vessels necessarily have had frequent communication with the fleets in the ports of those islands, they could not avoid being infected. When the infected vessels return­ed home early in the spring or summer, or late in the fall, the temperature of the air not being fa­vourable to retain or convey the matter of conta­gion, no disease or only a few solitary cases have been the consequence. The reason that the disease occurs more commonly about the end of July or beginning of August, in the United States (though there are many exceptions to this fact, for it has sometimes occurred in the month of May) is be­cause it is more generally epidemic in the West In­dia islands in that season, as we learn from several writers of credit, than at any other time of the year, which is the most rainy season within the tropics.

[Page 61] In the month of June in the year 1793, a great number of vessels, which were at Cape Francois during the capture of that town by the negroes, took on board and conveyed from thence a great many of the distressed inhabitants that had escaped the fury of the captors, to Philadelphia, as well as to some of the islands.—And it is a remarkable cir­cumstance, as recorded by Dr. Clark, that the dis­ease made its first appearance in Dominica a few days after the arrival of a number of the fugitives there;^* which was precisely the case at Philadel­phia. A few days after the middle of July, seve­ral vessels from Cape Francois arrived at the port of Philadelphia, crouded with passengers and goods of various descriptions; and about the same time, or a few days later, a French privateer called the Sans-culotte, from Nantz but last from the West Indies, which brought in the ship Flora of Glas­gow, captured on her passage.

The disease made its appearance the beginning of August, first in the lodging house of Mr. Denny, in the neighbourhood of the wharves where two vessels which had landed sickly passengers and the Sans-culotte lay. The first victim to the disease was an Englishman of the name of Moore, who lodged at Denny's. From the suddenness of his death and the livid appearance of the dead body, [Page 62] Drs. Cathrall and Physick suspected he had taken poison, and obtained permission to open his body, but could discover nothing to justify their suspicions. On the 3d of August Dr. Cathrall attended at the same house a female lodger of the name of Parker, who died on the sixth day from the attack. Two French boarders in the same house sickened a few days later, one of whom died. Mrs. Denny, her husband and two daughters, were also taken ill a few days after the death of Mrs. Parkison—Mr. Denny and wife died: the daughters recovered. Mr. Philips's family, whose house joined Mr. Den­ny's, also suffered about the same time. Several of the passengers had rested themselves on their first coming on shore in Mr. Lemaigre's kitchen, which stands near the wharf, some of whom appeared in a very sickly condition, according to the testimony of Mr. Lemaigre and his clerk, and also of Major Hodgson, Mr. Ashbridge, and others, who commu­nicated this account to Drs. Leib, Cathrall, and the writer of these pages. Three of Mr. Lemaigre's servants were attacked with the disease on the 2d of August; Miss Phillips at Major Hodgdon's on the 6th; two of Mr. Smith's daughters and one of Mr. Andrew Hodge's, all of whom lived in the same neighbourhood, about the same time. All these were attended by Dr. Hodge (except the Miss Smiths who were attended by Dr. Carson) and Dr. Hodge treated them with mercurial purges. Dr. Carson also prescribed the same for Mr. Smith's family, [Page 63] from a supposition that they were only violent cases of the common endemic of the city (the remittent of autumn) and from recollecting that he had once experienced sensible benefit, when ill of a bilious fever, by taking twenty grains of calomel at one dose, by the advice of the late Dr. William Smith.

Capt. Swartz's vessel from St. Thomas's, which lay a few paces above the vessels that had landed the sick passengers, was moved up to Kensington about the 16th of August. The Captain sickened two days after, and two of the crew a few days later: the Captain died, the others recovered. Soon after the arrival of Capt. Swartz's vessel at Kensington, the disease made its appearance in some of the families there, and soon after became general.

For some time the disease was confined to that part of Water-street where it commenced, and al­most every case that occurred for the first two weeks, could be traced to that particular place. The arrival of a cargo of damaged coffee a short time before the fever made its appearance, gave rise to an opinion among some gentlemen, that the disease originated from that source; but in the opi­nion of others, it might with equal justice be ascrib­ed to a cargo of millstones which lay in the same neighbourhood: for though there are many in­stances on record of intermitting and remitting fe­vers originating from the effluvia of putrid vegeta­bles, [Page 64] in low, damp, marshy and unventilated situa­tions, in the autumnal season, when the surrounding atmosphere is moist and impure, there is not a single well attested example to be found of either the plague, or the fever called the yellow fever, which appears to be only a lower degree of the plague, or of any other contagious fever originating from that cause.

The cities of Europe in similar climates and situ­ations are equally subject to the lesser tribe of fe­brile diseases with the United States; and some of them that have much intercourse with the West India islands, and Cadiz in particular, have been invaded by the yellow fever.^* (See Lind on Dis­eases of Hot Climates.)

Many of the cities of the United States have now existed near 200 years, and Philadelphia more than 100. During this period, by clearing and cultivating the surrounding country, and by drain­ing, paving and arching the reservoirs, and pre­venting the stagnation of water, and the putrefac­tion of animal and vegetable substances to any con­siderable [Page 65] degree within their precincts, they have overcome all the natural and usual disadvantages of new settlements; in consequence of which, fe­vers and fluxes, once so formidable, had almost disappeared in the cities for some years before the yellow fever made its appearance, particularly in New York and Philadelphia, as is evident from their bills of mortality, which prove them to be more healthy than any city in Europe in the same latitude, with a proportionable population.

Dr. Monson (whose name has already been men­tioned with respect) in a letter to Dr. D. Hossack of New York, after assuring him that the yellow fever was clearly and decidedly proved to have been imported into Haddam on Connecticut river, in the year 1796, and into Providence in the year 1797, remarks, "that the name which has been given to this fever has occasioned the disputes which have arisen about its nature and causes, both in the West Indies and in this country. The fever called the seasoning fever, to which strangers are so gene­rally subject on their first arrival in the West Indies, has been confounded by most of the West India writers with the pestilential fever: and some of them have confounded it with the bilious or remit­ting fever occasioned by the air of marshes, or the exhalations from collections of putrid vegetable sub­stances; though it is evident it can have no connec­tion with the latter, because the natives are equally [Page 66] subject to bilious fevers with strangers, and also because the bilious fever is not a contagious disease in either the West Indies or in this country, the reverse of which is the case with both the yellow fever and the common malignant fever of jails and hospitals.^* These unfortunate mistakes have, no doubt, occasioned and kept alive the diversity of opinion and the unavailing controversy which sub­sist. This I think clearly appears from the nume­rous accounts published in the news-papers, and in Mr. Webster's collection; for the gentlemen who have communicated their observations, most of whom had never seen many, and some of them not a single case of the yellow fever, have taken its identity with the marsh fever for granted, and of course have confounded it with what they are pleas­ed to call the dock fever of New York, the pond fever of Sheffield, the horse-neck fever of Montgo­mery, and the cabbage-head fever of Hartford."

If the yellow fever, with its dreadful train of malignity and almost resistless violence, was only a higher grade of the common remitting fever, and originated from the same causes, it has been asked, How came it all at once to assume such a new and terrific form, as there is no example of such a sud­den [Page 67] and extraordinary change in the diseases of any other country?

To extricate themselves from the dilemma in which they are involved by this question, the sup­porters of the domestic origin of the yellow fever have recourse to an imaginary change in the consti­tution of the atmosphere, which they say has taken place of late years, and has become inflammatory: and, that this inflammatory constitution of the at­mosphere, in conjunction with putrid exhalations, which before this change of constitution took place occasioned only fevers of a simple and mild kind in this country, now gives origin to the malignant and destructive yellow fever. In support of this doc­trine, its advocates appeal to the season of the year when the disease begins, progresses and terminates; and to the more speedy ripening and decay of fruit, increase of insects, &c. than formerly: and, no doubt, they would have considered the Hessian fly as an unanswerable argument in favour of their opinion, if, unfortunately, it had not appeared too early for their purpose.—Mr. Webster, with equal reason, considers the death of oysters and large draughts of shad, as links of the same chain of causes which produce earthquakes and yellow fe­ver! But it surely requires something more sub­stantial, to establish a doctrine fraught with such serious consequences to the welfare and interest of the community, than the mere suggestions of fancy: [Page 68] And till those gentlemen subject the atmosphere to eudiometrical experiments, and demonstrate that such a constitution does exist, or that some material change has taken place, it cannot with justice or safety be considered as any thing more than the mere suggestions of fancy, and deserves no more respect than the visionary opinions which prevailed in the dark ages of Gothic ignorance, when the conjunction or opposition of certain planets were believed to be the cause of the plague.

The following lines of Fracastoricus, who pub­lished his observations about the middle of the 16th century, give some idea of this doctrine:

The ancient doctrine of the influence of certain planets in the production of pestilential diseases, being the offspring of ignorance and superstition, and not of rational and unprejudiced observations, is deservedly rejected. This must eventually be the case with the more modern doctrine respecting the change which is supposed to have taken place of [Page 69] late years in the constitution of the atmosphere, and assigned as the cause of the conversion of our formerly mild fevers into those of a malignant and pestilential kind—For this doctrine is neither sup­ported by observations nor direct experiments: on the contrary, it is so palpably erroneous, that the New York reviewers have given judgment against it;

1st. Because it derives no support from eudio­metrical experiments nor any other direct proof.

2d. Because it seems to be rendered impossible by the season of the year, when these malignant fevers are most apt to prevail; i. e. the latter end of summer and the autumn, at which time, if at any sea­son of the year, the relative quantity of the oxygene (or pure portion of the atmosphere,) it would seem probable is most scanty. A considerable pro­portion of vegetable substances is then dead, and even the living vegetables, a principal source of that air, have at this time much declined from the fresh, vigorous and healthy state in which they emit it most copiously.

3d. Because a greater proportion of the oxygene air, or inflammatory principle, exists in the winter, spring and early part of the summer, than during the remainder of the year, as seems to be rendered probable, by the brighter, and more florid com­plexions [Page 70] of people, at such seasons, and by the nature of the diseases then most apt to prevail.

4th. Because if it was owing to an increased proportion of oxygenous air or an inflammatory constitution, the disease should appear among the inhabitants in the country, more readily than in the air of cities.

The late experiments of Dr. Carmichael Smyth, also appear to militate against this opinion. The fumes produced according to his directions to de­stroy contagion, consist, as Mr. Keir asserts, of highly oxygenated nitrous vapour, mixed with a large quantity of oxygenous or pure air.

It is a maxim in philosophy, not to admit any thing for the cause of an effect that is not sup­ported by accurate and repeated observations or direct experiments. Therefore, till more substantial proofs than arbitrary assertions or ingenious con­jectures, are offered in support of this doctrine, it ought neither to be adopted nor respected.

Equally powerful objections apply to the doc­trine of gazeous oxyd of azote.

The doctrine of Mr. Webster on this subject, notwithstanding his elaborate researches, appears [Page 71] still more exceptionable, and to be as much the creature of imagination as the tales of the fairies.

Some gentlemen, confounding contagion which arises occasionally in certain climates and situations, with that which is permanent and always existing, have hazarded and assertion, in contradiction to re­ceived opinion and common observation, that the yellow fever is not contagious. This doctrine, if erroneous, would be attended with such serious consequences, that nothing but the most positive and unambiguous proofs should induce any one to give credit to it. For though many inconveniencies and evils arise from the dread of contagion when it does not exist, there has been no truth more clearly proved, than that still greater inconveniencies and injuries are the consequence of believing there is no danger in visiting and attending the sick, when the disease is contagious. Surely, therefore, before the adoption of an opinion which, if false, would be attended with such serious and fatal conse­quences, the most indisputable proofs should be exhibited.

Notwithstanding the difficulties which attend all inquiries into the nature and properties of conta­gion, and the influence of various causes on its ope­ration, there are but few subjects on which people in general are so well agreed. And if men of eru­dition had trusted to the testimony of their senses, [Page 72] instead of the fallacious pictures of their imagina­tions, many countries and cities would have escaped the dreadful scourge of the plague, the contagious nature of which, as well as that of the yellow fe­ver, has been openly denied by men who have roved among the planets in search of causes, instead of at­tending to the phenomena and occurrences before their eyes.—The reasons most commonly advanced in support of this extraordinary opinion, were, because many of the attendants on the sick were not affect­ed, because its progress was fluctuating, and it was most prevalent and mortal among the poorest class­es, and might be owing to poverty, unfound food, unwholesome water, and many other supposed causes. That this mistake was eventually the oc­casion of the most dreadful calamities, is well known to those who have read the history of the plagues which have been imported from the Levant, at different times, into the cities of Europe. Similar opinions have of late been attempted to be revived in this country; but I hope the recent experience, and the good sense of the people, will preserve them from adopting so erroneous and mischievous a doc­trine, which has a tendency to relax the vigilance of those stationed at the post of danger.

It is a fact well known to those who have had the charge of prison-ships or transports crouded with men, that it is not only from a direct com­munication with the sick that contagious fevers are [Page 73] occasioned and propagated, but from the persons and clothes of those that have lately been sick, or that have even remained long in an infected atmosphere; that is, in that portion of the atmosphere that sur­rounds the sick, which being received into woollen, cotton, silk, and many other porous materials, not excepting timber and furniture, are capable, after having been conveyed a great distance and preserved a great length of time in situations excluded from fresh air, of producing the same effect as an immedi­ate communication with the sick themselves: of this fact, the examples on record are so numerous as to put the matter beyond the possibility of a doubt. It has also been observed by several late writers of distinguished talents and information, that the most highly contagious fevers, in clear and well venti­lated hospitals, do not in general affect the patients lodged in the same ward, but the nurses only, and those patients or other persons that assist them in taking them out or putting them into bed, or those that lie in the beds contiguous to, or very near them. The same observation applies to private families in large, clean and ventilated apartments; for there it is rare for any persons but those who are under the necessity of sleeping in the chamber, or of approaching so near the sick as to be sensible of the warmth or exhalations from his body, to be infected, especially if they guard against stand­ing opposite to the course of the wind when the windows are open; for the matter of contagion, [Page 74] like noxious gases, only operates injuriously when concentrated and unmixed with pure air, and is harmless when diffused in the unconfined atmosphere.

The ingenious Dr. Hunter, who had charge of the military hospitals in Jamaica in the years 1781, 1782, and 1783, remarks that the typhus gravior^* (which is known to be contagious in temperate cli­mates in all close, unventilated and uncleanly situa­tions, crowded with people) was never contagious in the hospitals of Jamaica, though they were fre­quently crowded with patients with diseases of dif­ferent descriptions. Dr. Lind informs us, that this fever, so extremely contagious on board ships, was seldom contagious in the clean and airy hospital of Haslar in England.

Both these authors, as well as the unrivalled Cul­len, are decidedly of opinion, that the contagion of fever received and retained in the wearing ap­parel and bedding of the diseased, is the most dangerous mode in which it can be communicated, and is much more certain in producing fever than when it first issues from the body of the patient. In support of this opinion, Dr. Lind appeals to the circumstance of the naked slaves from Africa escaping, while the convicts sent to America with dirty foul clothing, generally suffer by it during [Page 75] their voyage, though much less crowded than the unfortunate slaves. It is also well known to those acquainted with the present state of medical know­ledge, or that have been employed in military hospitals or prison ships, that the fever which originates in confined and foul situations crowded with people, is of a continued form, and is con­tagious in winter as well as at other seasons of the year; which we now know is not the case in tem­perate climates with either the plague or the yel­low fever, both of which prevail or become epide­mic only in the latter part of summer and during the autumnal season; and which have so many symptoms in common, and have their principal seats in the same parts of the system, as dissections demonstrate, that if there is any dependence on analogy, they originate from the same cause and are only different degrees of the same disease, varied in some respects by difference of climate.

We now know from repeated observations, that the contagion of the yellow fever, like that of the pestilence, requires a certain range of temperature, as well as a calm or stagnant condition of it, to enable it to operate injuriously on the principle of life. When the temperature of the atmos­phere is above 80, the contagion is volatilized and dissipated: when as low as the freezing point, the caloric or matter of heat by which it is render­ed volatile and active is detached, and it falls harm­less [Page 76] to the ground.—This is illustrated by the poi­sonous juice of the West India cashu nut, which in a certain temperature rises into the atmosphere; and, though imperceptible to the senses, when it comes in contact with a tender part of the surface of the body where the cuticle is thin, it occasions a burning sensation and a painful eruption, which sometimes excites a considerable degree of fever.

I apprehend I have now proved the yellow fever to be a contagious and imported disease, by testimo­ny that can neither be denied nor invalidated, and consequently that the doctrine of its domestic ori­gin is palpably erroneous. This is a fact of great importance to the true interest of this country; for if the erroneous doctrine of the domestic origin of the disease was generally believed, foreign com­merce would shun our dangerous ports, and the vessels of our merchants would be subjected to the inconvenience and vexation of a tedious and ex­pensive quarantine in foreign ports. This has al­ready been proposed at Marseilles, as appears from a pamphlet received from thence by the secretary of state. The industrious classes of our citizens, sore vexed by cheerless poverty, would seek some safer and more favourable situation, and the stately edifices of our cities themselves would soon crumble into ruins:—for few that deserve the name of ra­tional beings, would be found so prodigal of health and life, however powerful their love of gain, as to [Page 77] immigrate to, or venture to reside in the seat of pestilence and death.

The arguments of those gentlemen who contend, that the belief in the doctrine of the domestic ori­gin of the disease would promote the interest of this country, resemble the arguments of the athe­ists, who maintain that the cause of morality would be promoted by the belief that there is no future state of accountability; a belief that would take off all restraint from triumphant vice, and all con­solation from suffering virtue.

My observations however incline me to believe, that although the yellow fever is never generated in this country, it is communicated from one to another more readily and certainly when the at­mosphere is replete with putrid exhalations, than when it is more pure or free from such exhala­tions. Prudence, therefore, dictates the propriety of removing from the city and its vicinity all putre­fiable substances, and to promote coolness and ven­tilation during the hot season, as far as practicable; at the same time, I think our main force should be directed with energy and incessant vigilance to the source of importation; convinced, if that post was faithfully and effectually guarded, our health would not be endangered nor our interest and prosperity blasted by the disastrous calamity of the yellow fever.