The Common Nature of Epidemics, and their relation to climate and civilizationSmith, Southwood
History
The Common Nature of Epidemics, and their relation to climate and civilization
Smith, Southwood
Communicable diseases; Epidemics; Quarantine
That it was not from any want of susceptibility to the influence of
febrile poison that these women escaped the danger of this exposure to
_fomites_ was proved by subsequent events; for during the progress of
the epidemic, all of these women, according to Dr McWilliam, with only
one exception, were attacked with the prevailing fever; two between six
and seven weeks after the sailing of the “Eclair;” five, two months;
two, three months; three, four months; and one, five months afterwards.
“None of the deaths,” says Dr M‘William, “took place until fever was
general in Porto Sal Rey, so that in none of these cases can the
occurrence of the fever be fairly attributed to infectious matter
conveyed by the linen.”
The Guards at the Fort were many times relieved, and the soldiers were
sent direct from the small island to their barracks in Porto Sal Rey,
without conveying any disease to their comrades. On one occasion two
soldiers who are stated to have lived in a room next to that in which
the sick of the “Eclair” were lodged, on being taken ill, were conveyed
at once to the barracks, yet they infected no one in their quarters.
From a list drawn up by Dr King, of the names of the islanders who were
engaged as labourers on board the “Eclair,” it appears that there were
in all 63 persons employed in coaling, watering, and cleansing the ship.
These men appear to have had unrestricted communication with the ship’s
crew. According to Dr M‘William, the whole of these labourers went to
their respective homes every night, except those from Estacia and the
Eastern villages, who generally slept at Porto Sal Rey. None of these
men were themselves attacked with fever, excepting one (Pathi) whose
case has been already considered; none of them communicated fever either
to their own families or to the persons with whom they lodged in the
town, yet subsequent events proved that they as well as the washerwomen
were sufficiently susceptible subjects, since, during the progress of
the epidemic, the greater part of them were attacked by the disease;
none, however, within a month after the departure of the “Eclair;” a few
within two months, but the majority not until four or five months
afterwards.
That the geographical position of the Cape de Verd Islands places them
within the legitimate domain of Yellow Fever, and that this disease is
no stranger to these islands, is admitted on all hands. According to Dr
M‘William,
“The north-western part of the island, where Porto Sal Rey is situated,
is low and flat, and almost wholly occupied by sand, which, blown up
from the north-western shore through the water-courses, and other
hollows, accumulates in mounds twenty and thirty feet high, which are
drawn about and shifted by any little variation of the direction of the
wind.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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