Irvine's Treatise on the yellow fever.

  • Irvine, Matthew, approximately 1755-1827.
Date:
[1820]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Irvine's Treatise on the yellow fever. 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.)

    17/66
    low citizens to the veal sources of the disorder. Br an attention to these, the managers of our Boards of Health throughout the United States, will at once be more at home, as to the origin of the disease and the proper methods of preventing; its ravages.* There- can be no doubt that in those places, in the neighbour- hood of New.York and Baltimore, where the Fever * Party zeal and prejudice often render men incapable of deriving any evidence or information from facts, but such as suit their own views and purposes. Doctor Chisholm, at page 205 of his Letter to Doctor Haygarth, introduces one to himself, from Doctor Hosack, <ia- ted, New-York. July 9th, 180«. in which there is an abundant display of zed, I do not say for maintaining the cause of truth, but. for assert- ing the supposed contagion and importation of Yellow Fever: heal- so communicates his intention to write and print a letter, charging Doctor Miller with *' want of candour, in his official report to the governor; which charge he founds upon the following statement, viz. '< As a member of the Board of Health, he (Dr. Miller) must have known that the disease was confined for many weeks to a small por- tion of the eastern side, of the city, and that, not a case occured in any other part of the town, that was not referable to that, as its source. Such was the statement of the Board of Health to our citizens, and, in consequence of which, they forbade intercourse with the infected portion of our city, and ordered an abandonment of that part of the town, &c. He adds, a 'few weeks after, the infection extended a few streets further. The Board of Health accurately defined its limits, and again declared, that still not a case occured but could be traced to this spot of the city, as its source Doctor Miller carefully enumerates the cases occuring, and the numerous pa ts of the city in which the sick reside, but as carefully suppresses the observation of the board, of which, too, he was a member, and must have known, that the per- sons so taken sick, had, prior to their attack, been exposed to the infection by frequenting the infected spot.'' How strangely Doctor Hosack here mistakes the obvious import or evidence of an important fact! One of the strongest proofs of the heal origin of Yellow Fever, results from the circumstance of its beginning, and remaining, almost exclusively, in particular spots or situations. Of this, Doctor Mil- ler was very sensible; and. if he omitted to state '• the observation of the board. respecting it, ha could only have done so because it ap- peared superfluous, after he had so distinctly mentioned the facts to which it related. And is it then possible, that Doctors Hosack and Chisholm can have been so inept as to believe that these facts could operate in supporting their opinion of the importation and contagious nature of this disease ? Do they conceive, that if it were contagious, it would have been so many weeks confined to one spot, and that when