Statistical report on the sickness and mortality in the Army of the United States / compiled from the records ... January, 1819, to January, 1839 ; prepared under the direction of Thomas Lawson.
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Statistical report on the sickness and mortality in the Army of the United States / compiled from the records ... January, 1819, to January, 1839 ; prepared under the direction of Thomas Lawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![localities peculiarly favorable to the production of malaria. The cele- brated Volney, who had seen the disease in our sea-ports, found, during his travels through the interior, the yellow fever in many places. Dr. Miller, of New York, in his excellent essay on yellow fever, refers to the journal of a voyage down the Ohio in 1796, by Mr. A. Ellicott. This judicious observer was a witness, at Gallipolis, inhabited by some miserable French families, to the disease, which raged violently, the fatal cases being generally attended with the symptom of black vomit. The fever could not, he says, have been taken there from the At- lantic States, as my boat was the first that descended the river after the fall of the water in the spring. Neither could it have been taken from New Orleans, as there is no communication up the river at that season of the year. [This was prior to the era of steam-boats.] Moreover, the distance is so great, that a boat would not have time to ascend the river, after the disorder appeared that year in New Orleans, before the winter would set in. In 1797, the disease appeared at New Design, 15 miles from the Mississippi and 20 from St. Louis, and carried off more than one-fourth of the inhabitants, although no person, during the preceding twelve months, had come to this village from any place at which the malady prevailed. As these facts are attested by Dr. Watkins, who had seen the disease iu Philadelphia, and as an identity of disease supposes an identity of cause, it is shown indisputably that fevers with the pathognomonic feat ures of typhus icterodes, do occur in positions which forbid the assumption of importation. In the last quarter of the year, diseases were of a mild character. In the northern division, the total of deaths reported in the medical returns was 42, one-half of which occurred in a detachment of the 5th Infantry, stationed at the mouth of the St. Peter's. The prevailing diseases were catarrhal and intermittent, fever, diarrhoea and dysentery, and dropsical and scorbutic affections. The causes seem to have been of a local and fortuitous character ; such as, exposure to very inclement weather, both on the march to St. Peter's, and during the time employed in establish- ing quarters; the want of the usual supplies of the lighter articles of food, and the deteriorated quality of the rations that were issued; the difficulty of attending to those details of police duty upon which the health of a garrison materially depends; and, lastly, the absence of all permanent accommodations for the sick. In the southern division of the army, no peculiarity of morbid action is presented. Two-thirds of the fatal cases occurred in the 8th Infantry, employed in cutting a military road, and in the 6th Infantry and Rifle regiment on the Missouri. It is a fact confirmed by multiplied experi- ence, that the diseases of troops in permanent stations are comparatively few and mild; whilst those of a detachment on fatigue, removed from the usual station, exhibit not only an increased ratio, but an augmented average of mortality. The reports for this quarter from the detachments thus employed, are says the Surgeon General, nearly as large in proportion as they were from most of the frontier posts during the war. Although the summer of this year was remarkable for the general prevalence of fevers characterized by a malignant tendency, yet the ratio 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21977379_0017.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
