A sequel to an essay on the yellow fever; principally intended to prove, by incontestable facts and important documents, that the fever, called bulam, or pestilential, has no existence as a distinct, or a contagious disease.

  • Bancroft, Edward, 1744-1821.
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A sequel to an essay on the yellow fever; principally intended to prove, by incontestable facts and important documents, that the fever, called bulam, or pestilential, has no existence as a distinct, or a contagious disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    with the disease were placed and treated, and where many of them died, fell sick of the same order of fever. * As it appears that in 1810, as in 1800, 1804, and 1813, the epidemic fever first became manifest in the notorious Barrio of Santa Maria, it may not be improper to quote from Mr. Doughty's work some observations upon this quarter of Cadiz, and likewise upon the weather during the autumn of 1810. Having noticed at page 179 the crowded and filthy state of this Barrio, and the impro- priety of shutting our eyes to so obvious a focus of disease, he adds in the next page, from the time I took up my residence in the St. Elena barracks, situated in the above quarter, and not more than fifty yards from the back of its several lanes and buildings, it was my custom, iu my daily visits to the Hospicio and the San Juan de Dios hospitals, to pass through many of the narrow streets of this quarter, and I particularly observed the striking * It is, I think, seriously to be regi-etted that the Chief Medical Officer of the British Forces at Cadiz should have closed his eyes against proofs so clear as those recorded by Mr. Doughty, oc- curring, too, immediately before him. Had he seen facts, and reasoned upon them with impartiality, he might have given dif- ferent and more faithful and valuable accounts and explanations of what he witnessed; and he might also have rendered an essen- tial service to humanity, by contributing to remove, or at least to diminish, the erroneous prejudices of the Spanish physicians, in- stead of confirming them to the utmost of his power.