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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    evidence of the officers of the vessel entirely disproved the truth of the report, that Mr. L., or any one from the neighboring shores, had ever visited her decks.* Had Mr. L. ever done so, it would, to say the least, have been singular that he should thus destroy young Aldrich, his own children and his wife, before he yielded himself a victim. Next it was said, that the seamen from the Ciscar had had their clothes washed at a farm distant four miles from the shore off which the vessel lay, and four miles from Mount Pleasant; that Mr. Lofton kept his cattle at this farm, and upon returning to the town, after some of his visits to the farm, he had brought the poison in his clothes. This rumor was as false as the preceding; and if it were correct, would be as unsatisfactory as the first, in accounting for the disease. Thirdly, a mattress had been seen upon the town beach, before the breaking out of the fever— ergo, it come from a yellow fever vessel—ergo, the morbific cause of the disease had thus been transported. Now, there were but three vessels in the harbor upon which deaths from yellow fever occurred, viz: the Ciscar, the Johannes, and the San Juan. The deaths on two of the vessels took place, as will be seen by reference to dates that I have given elsewhere, after the first cases of sickness appeared at Mount Pleasant. The Ciscar was the only vessel on board of which a death occurred previous to the breaking out of the disease at Mount Pleasant. The officers of this vessel most positively deny that a mat- tress was thrown from her; and we have no reason to doubt their statement. Fourthly, some Spanish sailors had been at Mount Pleasant previous to young Aldrich's sickness, and he had been seen speaking with them. It seems to be sub- stantiated that Mr. Aldrich was seen speaking to some strange seamen. 1 have never obtained, however, any satisfactory proof that these were Spaniards, or other foreigners. Perhaps they were Spaniards. No one knows, then, from whence they » While correcting this article for the press, we learn that Mr. L. served a writ on board the Koophandel—supposed by some to he an infected vessel. From the general tenor of our remarks, it will be seen that we cannot consider this a satis- factory elucidation of the origin of the disease. It disease can be thus intro- duced, our Tort Physician would bring it for us every summer.