Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 1: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
History
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 1: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
July and August were uncommonly warm. The mercury stood on the 6th of
August at 94-1/2°, on the 15th of the same month at 95°, and for several
days afterwards at 90°. Many labouring people perished during this month
by the heat, and by drinking, not only cold water, but cold liquors of
several kinds, while they were under the violent impressions of the heat.
The vomiting and purging prevailed universally, during these two warm
months, among the children, and with uncommon degrees of mortality.
Children from one year to eight and nine years old were likewise very
generally affected by blotches and little boils, especially in their
faces. An eruption on the skin, called by the common people the prickly
heat, was very common at this time among persons of all ages. The winds
during these months blew chiefly from the south, and south-west. Of
course they passed over the land which lies between the city, and the
conflux of the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill, the peculiar situation of
which, at that time, has been already described.
The dock, and the streets of Philadelphia, supplied the winds at this
season, likewise, with a portion of their unwholesome exhalations.
The muschetoes were uncommonly numerous during the autumn. A certain
sign (says Dr. Lind) of an unwholesome atmosphere.
The remitting fever made its first appearance in July and August, but
its symptoms were so mild, and its extent so confined, that it excited
no apprehensions of its subsequent more general prevalence throughout
the city.
On the 19th of August the air became suddenly very cool. Many hundred
people in the city complained, the next day, of different degrees of
indisposition, from a sense of lassitude, to a fever of the remitting
type. This was the signal of the epidemic. The weather continued cool
during the remaining part of the month, and during the whole month of
September. From the exposure of the district of Southwark (which is
often distinguished by the name of the _Hill_) to the south-west winds,
the fever made its first appearance in that appendage of the city.
Scarcely a family, and, in many families, scarcely a member of them,
escaped it. From the Hill it gradually travelled along the second street
from the Delaware, improperly called Front-street. For a while it was
confined to this street only, after it entered the city, and hence it
was called by some people the _Front-street fever_. It gradually spread
through other parts of the city, but with very different degrees of
violence. It prevailed but little in the Northern Liberties. It was
scarcely known beyond Fourth-street from the Delaware. Intemperance in
eating or drinking, riding in the sun or rain, watching, fatigue, or
even a fright, but more frequently cold, all served to excite the seeds
of this fever into action, where-ever they existed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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