A brief description of the yellow fever : as it prevailed at Mt. Pleasant and in Charleston Harbor during the summer of 1857 / by R.A. Kinloch.

  • Kinloch, R. A. (Robert Alexander), 1826-1891.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief description of the yellow fever : as it prevailed at Mt. Pleasant and in Charleston Harbor during the summer of 1857 / by R.A. Kinloch. 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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    infant's attack, and the 8th of September, the date of the occurrence of the second case in the Lofton family, opposed to the idea of the identity of the diseases. But upon looking to the Aldrich family, by way of comparison, I found that there was not much difference in the length of the interval intervening here between the periods at which young Aldrich and bis sisters were respectively attacked. The first was attacked on the 28th of August, the second on the 10th of September, and the third on the 12th of the same month. I refer to the priority of these two cases only to he accurate in my account of the disease, and not because I think a truthful decision of the point important in determining the question of its origin. Some of my readers, however, may possibly differ from me in this opinion. Now I come directly to the question, how did the Lofton and Aldrich families get yellow fever? or, in other words, how did this disease come to prevail at Mount Pleasant? This brings us to the old disputed matter of foreign importation, and domestic origin. So soon as it was established that the yellow fever was at Mount Pleasant, many of the inhabitants became clamorous about the salubrity of the village. Many of them were ready to stake their all upon the belief that such a disease could not originate there, and some seemed deter- mined to prove its importation. In their ignorance, or thought- lessness, they seemed to overlook the fact that it was about as detrimental to the town to admit that imported yellow fever could live and propagate there, as it was to acknowledge iis possible generation on the spot. If the condition of the town is so changed that the disease now will propagate there after importation, then she may suffer whenever our city does unless she will change her policy and establish rigid quaran- tine regulations during the existence of our epidemics. Re- ports of various kinds were soon in circulation. It was first asserted that Mr. Lofton, who had been butchering for the village, had been supplying beef to the Ciscar—an infected vessel lying off Hobcaw Point — and brought back the yellow fever poison in exchange. Upon a rigid investigation no one could be found to substantiate this assertion, and the