Dr. Fergusson on yellow fever.

  • Fergusson William, Sir, 1808-1877.
Date:
[1839]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Fergusson on yellow fever. 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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    Dr. FERGUSSON ON YELLOW FEVER. (From, the Medico- Chirurgical Review, No. LXIII.) To the Editor of the Medico-Chirurgical Review. Sir,—My attention having been called to a late number of the Medical Gazette, wherein the infectious nature of tropical yellow fever is advocated in a well-written paper by Mr. William Fergusson, Surgeon of the Royal African Corps, I feel myself called upon, in vindication of the pledge I recorded when I last wrote upon the subject, in reply to Dr. Fraser of Demerara, now to examine the facts he adduces and the arguments he brings forward in their support. I feel it the more incumbent upon me to do this with as little delay as possible, because Mr. Fergusson is known to be an officer of great professional merit, who has much distinguished himself by useful services on the coast of Africa, and whose opinions, founded on much experience and submitted with diffidence and candour, cannot fail, if allowed to pass unquestioned, to have great weight not only in the medical world, but amongst all who are interested (and who is not?) in ascertaining the true nature of the disease. Mr. Fergusson at once and unequivocally admits that it never was imported into Sierra Leona, the fountain spring and head-quarters of yellow fever—that there it always arises spontaneously, being truly endemic when it does come, and never introduced or sporadic ; but that in the other settlements of the same station it never has been seen unless when imported from Sierra Leona, and that in the majority of them it never has been seen at all! This is a strange and a bold assertion, and before it can be admitted as a medical truth demands the strictest examination. Another of his propositions seems to be equally extra- ordinary—that the disease after being imported often requires an interval from 28 to 33 days before it can be made to shew itself amongst the inhabitants of its new field of operation. This is so contrary to all the known laws of incubation in febrile diseases, or indeed in any other diseases, with the exception of hydro- phobia, that it cannot be received without the strictest scrutiny, and indeed is negatived by himself in the instances of Monsieur Imbert and others who were supposed to have imported it, at the shortest contact, into the Island of Goree • but let us discuss if we can the first of Mr. Fergusson’s positions before we enter upon the second. \eHow fever is acknowledged always to spring spontaneously at Sierra Leona; then why may it not equally so arise at Gambia, Goree and Ascension, when.