The first recognized epidemic of yellow fever / by G.M. Findlay.

  • Findlay, G. M.
Date:
1941
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The first recognized epidemic of yellow fever / by G.M. Findlay. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Yucatan. Before the conquest of the Mayas the only reference in their chronicles to an epidemic disease is to the Maya Cimlal which is supposed to have occurred in 1482 or 1483. No precise details are given of this disease. From the Spanish conquest to 1648 the only pestilence suggestive of yellow fever is that attacking the members of Montejo’s expedition in 1527, although in the 120 years between 1527 and 1648 there had been an enormous influx of non-immunes from Spain. The only diseases recorded in this period are those well known in Europe, smallpox, measles and tarbardillo (probably typhus). Havana. The island of Cuba was settled in 1511 by Velasquez with 300 residents from Santo Domingo. From that date till 1648 no epidemic resembling yellow fever is recorded, with the exception of an outbreak in 1620 when an epidemic of pernicious fevers decimated Havana, lasting from June to November, and carrying away many victims both from the town and from the flota (Pezuela, 1868-1878). Carter (1931), quoting Dr. Beato of Havana, shows that this fever did not excite sufficient alarm for rogations or processions. The evidence there¬ fore is in favour of the view that yellow fever was not present in Cuba before 1648 or 1649. After this date it remained in the island till 1655, when it totally disappeared. In the meantime, in July and August of 1653, “ the same fevers afflicted Santiago and Bayama as the capital had suffered three years ago, with equal havoc as in Havana” (Pezuela, Historia, tom. ii, p. 112). Guadeloupe. The only disease described by Breton (1665) and du Tertre (1654 and 1667) as having occurred in Guadeloupe before 1648 is the coup de barre previously mentioned. St. Christopher. Captain Thomas Warner, in 1620, accompanied Roger North to Guiana : on the voyage he learnt from a Captain Painton of the fertility of St. Christopher. In 1623, with thirteen others, he sailed for St. Christopher, landing there on 28th January, 1624. Caribs were then present in the island, while a year later French colonists arrived under d’Esnambuc and du Rossey, who had procured from Cardinal Richelieu the privilege of establishing plantations in St. Christopher and Barbados. Apart from defi¬ ciencies of food on the voyages out—du Rossey on the “Cardinal” had only sixteen out of seventy persons alive when he arrived at Pointe de Sable—the colonists thrived, though in 1629 both the French and English were temporarily driven out by an attack of the Spanish. Until 1647, however, there is no history of epidemic disease. Apart from the references to the epidemic in that year given in association with the Barbados outbreak there is no eyewitness account, but Pere Pelleprat (1655) refers to an epidemic sickness in the island in 1652-3 which was communicable, fatal and general: this disease was associated with a shortage of food. Whether or not this infectious condition was the after- math of the epidemic of 1647-1648 is uncertain. Barbados. In 1625, John Powell the elder arrived in the “ Olive,” and took possession of the uninhabited island : eighty colonists landed in 1627 and by