An essay on the analogy of the Asiatic and African plague and the American yellow fever : with a view to prove that they are the same disease varied by climate and other circumstances / by Phineas Jenks.

  • Jenks, Phineas.
Date:
1804
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the analogy of the Asiatic and African plague and the American yellow fever : with a view to prove that they are the same disease varied by climate and other circumstances / by Phineas Jenks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    would be to cast a reflection upon one of the attri- butes of the Deity. We shall therefore content our- selves in humbly attempting to make it appear, that it is the natural effect of physical causes; or, in other words, the effect of the decomposition of vegetable and animal matters. We infer that miasma, and those noxious gasses eliminated in the process of putrefaction, are the causes of the plague, from its appearing only where they exist. At Rosetta, which is one of the filthiest cities in the world, the plague prevails with uncommon violence. The streets are extremely narrow and dirty, and there are large quantities of swampy, boggy ground, with numerous ditches, and canals, which contain stagnant water, around the town. That these are the causes of .the Plague is proved by its sudden and almost instantaneous disappearance in hot weather. The theory of the action of heat in destroying the plague, shall be given in the sequel: suffice it here to suggest, the improbability of heat destroying a contagious dis- ease so immediately. An assertion of this kind ought to be cautiously made, more especially when there are neither facts nor analogy to support it: for who ever heard of small pox, or measles, or any other disease that is generally admitted to be con- tagious disappearing so suddenly ?