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
The smell emitted from a patient, in a clean room, was like that of the
small-pox, but in most cases of a less disagreeable nature. Putrid smells
in sick rooms were the effects of the excretions, or of some other filthy
matters. In small rooms, crowded in some instances with four or five sick
people, there was an effluvia that produced giddiness, sickness at
stomach, a weakness of the limbs, faintness, and in some cases a
diarrh[oe]a. I met with a f[oe]tid breath in one patient, which was not
the effect of that medicine which sometimes produces it.
The state of the atmosphere, during the whole month of September, and the
first two weeks in October, favoured the accumulation of the miasmata in
the city.
The register of the weather shows how little the air was agitated by
winds during the above time. In vain were changes in the moon expected to
alter the state of the air. The light of the morning mocked the hopes
that were raised by a cloudy sky in the evening. The sun ceased to be
viewed with pleasure. Hundreds sickened every day beneath the influence
of his rays: and even where they did not excite the disease, they
produced a languor in the body unknown to the oldest inhabitant of the
city, at the same season of the year.
A meteor was seen at two o'clock in the morning, on or about the twelfth
of September. It fell between Third-street and the hospital, nearly in a
line with Pine-street. Moschetoes (the usual attendants of a sickly
autumn) were uncommonly numerous. Here and there a dead cat added to the
impurity of the air of the streets. It was supposed those animals
perished with hunger in the city, in consequence of so many houses being
deserted by the inhabitants who had fled into the country, but the
observations of subsequent years made it more probable they were
destroyed by the same morbid state of the atmosphere which produced the
reigning epidemic.
It appears further, from the register of the weather, that there was no
rain between the 25th of August and the 15th of October, except a few
drops, hardly enough to lay the dust of the streets, on the 9th of
September, and the 12th of October. In consequence of this drought, the
springs and wells failed in many parts of the country. The dust in some
places extended two feet below the surface of the ground. The pastures
were deficient, or burnt up. There was a scarcity of autumnal fruits in
the neighbourhood of the city. But while vegetation drooped or died from
the want of moisture in some places, it revived with preternatural vigour
from unusual heat in others. Cherry-trees blossomed, and apple, pear, and
plum-trees bore young fruit in several gardens in Trenton, thirty miles
from Philadelphia, in the month of October.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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