SECTION I.
History of the Yellow Fever.
The distemper now under consideration has been commonly distinguished by two different names; one of which is theYellow Fever, the other theBlack Vomit. Both of these are taken from symptoms so remarkable(though not occurring in every case) that, had the disease existed in ancient times, we can scarce think but some of the historians of antiquity would have taken notice that in such a plague those who died generally became yellow, or that they had a continual vomiting of black matter, which could not be stopped. Black or bilious vomitings are indeed mentioned, though not as the principal symptom, but the yellow colour is not once taken notice of. Dr. Hodges indeed mentions a single instance of a patient who became all over of agreencolour; but as a change of colour is not taken notice of in the plague as a general symptom, either by him or by any other writer, we must conclude that this distemper (the yellow fever) has been observed only in modern times.
When Columbus first visited the West India islands, we hear nothing of his having found such a disease existing 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 settlement of some of the West India islands, however, by other European 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 practised in the hot climate, we must give itsome name;” and he calls it theputrid bilious fever. “From the best and most authentic account (adds he) that I can obtain, as also from the nature and symptoms of the disease, it appears to be a disease that isindigenous142to 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 conceive 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 inquiry wouldhave informed him, that this fever had frequently appeared, in this and the other West India islands, many years before: for several judicious practitioners, who were then, and are now, living here, whose business was, visiting the sick the greatest 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.”
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 appearance 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 aProvencalefleet 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 suddenly, others in a few days, and some lingered longer; and the contagion, still spreading, made great havock 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 probable 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 befabulous, but whether fabricated by Dr. Warren or the surgeon, he does not say. He then appealsto Dr. Towne, who wrote before Warren, in 1776, but takes no notice of thischimericalorigin 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.Gambleremembers that it was very “fatal here in the year 1691, and that it was then called thenew distemper, and afterwardsKendal’s fever, thepestilential fever, and thebilious 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.”
As to the first appearance of the disease in the West India islands we have no accounts which have been deemed sufficiently 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. “Theendemial causus, oryellow fever, (says Dr. Mosely) which is the terror of Europeans newly arrived in the West Indies, is called by the Frenchla maladie de Siam. Monsieur Pouppe Desportes, who practised physic atSt. Dominiquefrom 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 Martinique 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 supposition 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.
“The generality of the French writers say that it was brought directly from Siam, in a merchant ship, and communicated to the people of Martinique, whence the contagion was carried to St. Dominique, but that sailors were the only people attacked by it, whence it was calledla fievre matelotte.”
This account seems to carry no improbability in it; nevertheless Dr. Mosely rejects it upon grounds that are very far from being indisputable. “The French writers (says he) have not been at the trouble to consider that a disease brought from Siam in the East Indies, in a similar latitude to the West India islands, would be most likely to affect the natives, living in a climate similar to that in which the disease originated, rather than the Europeans of so different a temperament of body.” But this argument would prove too much; for if the disease would be most likely to affect the natives in a climatesimilarto that in which the disease originated, surely it would be still more likely to attack the natives inthat very climatein which the disease did originate, and that Europeans would be free. But the very reverse is the case. The disease, according to Dr. Moseley himself, originates in the West Indies; and yet Europeans, especially those newly arrived, are particularly objects of its vengeance.
“But (adds our author) the fact is, that this disease never attacks either white or black natives of hot climates; neither was it brought from Siam; and though it is possible, from the heat of the climate, that it may frequently appear there, or in any other tropical country (thoughBarreresays it is unknown atCayenne) no history of that country that I have yet met with mentions such a disease; notwithstanding what many writers have boldly advanced to the contrary.”
Here it is evident we have no argument, but a parcel of assertions, the first of which contradicts what he had just before quoted from Mr. Hughes. For the latter informs us that in 1696 a great many of theinhabitantsdied of it as well as strangers. His notmeeting with it in any history of Siam is not a proof of its non-existence in the country, neither indeed does he himself think that it is so, as he tells us that it may possibly appear there, or in any other tropical country.
In Sauvages’s Nosology we find the plague distinguished into a number of different species, among which there is one called theplague of Siam. This, he says, was in the year 1685 brought from Siam to Martinico, in the ship called theOriflame. This seems to have been theyellow fever, and the symptoms are considered in the following section. This date agrees exactly with what Mr. Hughes says in the place above quoted, that it was violent in Barbadoes in the year 1691, when it went by the names of thenew fever, andKendal’s fever. Both these names imply that the disease had been but lately known, and that it was by no means a native of the climate. It must either have beenimportedtherefore from some other country, or it must haveoriginatedin consequence of the settlement of some Europeans in a climate so dissimilar to their own, while some of them still continued to ramble from one country to another, occasionally visiting all, without taking up their residence in any.
Martinique seems to have been the first place where this distemper made its appearance; and from thence it seems quickly to have extended itself to St. Domingo and Barbadoes. Its farther progress, however, cannot be traced, nor can we tell exactly what time it first entered the continent. Whether the true plague was ever imported into the Western Continent cannot at present be ascertained, neither can we tell what diseases the Indians were subject to before the arrival of the Europeans. The Spaniards, who first arrived, are allowed to have been less subject to the plague than other nations,143but they were quickly followed by those who had no such exemption. Sebastian Cabot discovered the North American Continent for Henry VII of England, very soon after, if not before Columbus discovered the Southern Continent for the king of Spain. This was a very suspicious time; for Henry VII himself had introducedthe sweating sickness into England only thirteen years before;144and in those days the plague seems never to have been eradicated; so that it is by no means impossible that these first adventurers might have communicated to the Indians with whom they had any communication, the seeds of diseases totally unknown to them before. Certain it is, that the North American Indians were subject to epidemics before the settlement of any English colonies among them. Hutchinson in his History of Massachusetts takes notice of the Indians having been greatly weakened by an epidemic, which was attributed to an unfavourable season, in consequence of which they were obliged to feed upon unripe squashes, fruits, &c. We know not the nature of the distemper, though, from the circumstance just mentioned, we may not unreasonably conjecture it to have been of the pestilential kind. That epidemics still continue among these people we also know from the testimony of Capt. Carver, who found one of their towns deserted, and the inhabitants fled into the woods, on account of an epidemic disorder; but what the nature of it was he does not inform us.145
Mr. Webster, in his eighth letter to Dr. Currie on the subject of pestilential diseases, quotes from the Doctor’s letter to Mr. Wynkoop, of October 5th, 1797, the following passages: “Thomas Story and Joseph Gough relate, that a malignant fever prevailed in Philadelphia in 1699, introduced from the West India islands. . . . Dr. Mitchill ascribes the yellow fever as it appeared in Virginia in 1741 and 47 to specific contagion, and mentions that it had been twice imported into Virginia by his Majesty’s ships of war. Dr.Leamy(Lining) in the Physical Essays in Edinburgh, informs us, that the yellow fever which has prevailed at different periods at Charleston, South Carolina, was always traced to some infected person recently from the West Indies. In 1741 it was introduced by a chest of wearing apparel which had belongedto a person who died of it from Barbadoes.” These quotations are made by Mr. Webster with a view to dispute the contagious nature of the disease. Here they are introduced only to show if possible the time that the disease first entered the United States; and the introduction of it into Philadelphia in 1699 (though we are not sure if even this was its first appearance), still corresponds extremely well with the date of its introduction into Martinique mentioned by Sauvages. Dr. Lining says it had been four times epidemic in Charleston before the time that he wrote; viz. in 1732, 1739, 1745, and 1748. Hence we may conclude, that this fever, on the northern part of the continent of America, has been nearly coeval with the settlement of the British colonies there; for we cannot suppose that we have accounts of the very first time that it made itsappearance any where. Numbers of individuals would probably be affected with it, and their cases pass unnoticed, till the general malady attracted the public attention.
In the Spanish dominions it seems to have been otherwise. Dr. Moseley quotes Don Ulloa saying that “thevomito prieto, or black vomit, was unknown at Carthagena, and all along the coast, till the years 1729 and 1730. In 1729 Don Domingo Justiniani, commodore of the guarda costas, lost so considerable a part of his ships’ companies atSanta Martha, that the survivors were struck with astonishment and horror at the havock made among their comrades. In 1730, when the galleons under Don Manuel Lopez Pintado came to Carthagena, the seamen were seized with the same dreadful mortality, and so sudden were the attacks ofthe disease, that persons, walking about one day, were the next carried to their graves. Unhappily, after all the experiments of the surgeons of the galleons, and physicians of the country, no good method of treating the disease has been discovered; no specific for curing it.”
This fatal disease, however common in the southern and warm part of the continent of America, seems not to have exerted its power in the more northern and temperate climates till the year 1793. Since that time its ravages have been too well known to require an enumeration here. To describe the symptoms, inquire into the causes, and the means of prevention and cure, is a work of more importance, and to this we must now proceed.