Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 3: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
Science
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 3: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
On the 25th of the month, two members of a committee, lately appointed by
the government of the state, for taking care of the health of the city,
called upon me to know whether the yellow fever was in town. I told them
it was, and mentioned some of the cases that had come under my notice;
but informed them, at the same time, that I had seen no case in which it
had been contagious, and that, in every case where I had been called
early, and where my prescriptions had been followed, the disease had
yielded to medicine.
On the 29th of the month I received an invitation to attend a meeting of
the committee of health, at their office at Walnut-street. They
interrogated me respecting the intelligence I had given to two of their
members on the 25th. I repeated it to them, and mentioned the names of
all the persons I had attended in the yellow fever since the 9th of June.
Neither this, nor several subsequent communications to the committee of
health produced the effect that was intended by them. Dr. Physick and Dr.
Dewees supported me in my declaration, but their testimony did not
protect me from the clamours of my fellow-citizens, nor from the
calumnies of some of my brethren, who, while they daily attended or lost
patients in the yellow fever, called it by the less unpopular names of
1. A common intermittent. 2. A bilious fever. 3. An inflammatory
remitting fever. 4. A putrid fever. 5. A nervous fever. 6. A dropsy of
the brain. 7. A lethargy. 8. Pleurisy. 9. Gout. 10. Rheumatism. 11.
Colic. 12. Dysentery. And 13. Sore throat.
It was said further, by several of the physicians of the city, not to be
the yellow fever, because some who had died of it had not a sighing in
the beginning, and a black vomiting in the close of the disease. Even
where the black vomiting and yellow skin occurred, they were said not to
constitute a yellow fever, for that those symptoms occurred in other
fevers.
Let not the reader complain of the citizens and physicians of
Philadelphia alone. A similar conduct has existed in all cities upon the
appearance of great and mortal epidemics.
Nor is it any thing new for mortal diseases to receive mild and harmless
names from physicians. The plague was called a spotted fever, for several
months, by some of the physicians of London, in the year 1665.
Notwithstanding the pains which were taken to discredit the report of the
existence of the yellow fever in the city, it was finally believed by
many citizens, and a number of families in consequence of it left the
city. And in spite of the harmless names of intermitting and remitting
fever, and the like, which were given to the disease, the bodies of
persons who had died with it were conveyed to the grave, in several
instances, upon a hearse, the way in which those who died of the yellow
fever were buried the year before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account