C H A P. XV.–Origin of the disorder.

 

THIS disorder has most unquestionably been imported from the West Indies. As yet, however, owing to various obvious reasons, it is difficult to fix, with absolute precision, on the vessel or vessels, (for it is very probable it came in several, from the different infected islands) by which it was introduced. That it is an imported disorder, rests on the following reasons, each of which, singly, justifies the theory, but (Page 68) all, collectively, established it to the satisfaction of every candid and reasonable man.

  1. The yellow fever existed in several of the West India islands a long time before its appearance here.1
  2. Various vessels from those islands arrived here in July.
  3. Scarcely any precautions were used to guard against the disorder.
  4. A respectable citizen of Philadelphia, supercargo of one of our vessels, saw, in July, six or seven people sick of this fever on board a brig at Cape François bound for our port.2
    (Page 69)
  5. A vessel from Cape François, which arrived here in July lost several of her people with this fever, on her passage.
  6. A person from Cape François, died of this fever at Marcus Hook3–and another at Chester.4
  7. The vessels in which those persons arrived, and which were infected with the effluvia of the sick and dead, came freely to our wharves, and particularly to that very one where the disorder made its first appearance.
  8. Persons sick of the yellow fever have been landed in our city from vessels arrived from the West Indies.5
  9. Dead bodies have been seen deposited secretly on board some of those vessels.
  10. There is the strongest reason to believe, that the beds and bedding of the sick and dead were not destroyed, but, on the contrary, brought into our city.
  11. This disorder had every characteristic symptom that marked it on former occasions, when its importation was unquestioned.

Lately, of all the reasons advanced to support the opinion of its having been generated here, the only one, that has even the appearance of plausibility, viz. the influence of a tropical season, such as we had last summer, is unanswerably refuted by the concurring testimony of Lind, Lining, Warren, and Bruce, who, in the most unequivocal manner, have declared that it does not depend on the weather.

"It does not appear, from the most accurate observations of the variations of the weather, or any difference of the seasons, which I have been able to make for several years past, that this fever is any way caused, or much influenced by them; for I have seen it at all times, and in all seasons, in the (Page 70) coolest, as well as in the hottest time of the year.6

"This fever does not seem to take its origin from any particular constitution of the weather, independent of infectious miasmata, as Dr. Warren has formerly well observed; for within these twenty-five years, it has been only four times epidemical in this town, namely in the autumns of the years 1732, 39, 45, and 48, though none of those years, (excepting that of 1739, whose summer and autumn were remarkably rainy) were either warmer or more rainy, (and some of them less so) than the summers and autumns were in several other years, in which we had not one instance of any one seized with this fever: which is contrary to what would have happened, if particular constitutions of the weather, were productive of it, without infectious miasmata".7

"In omni anni tempestate, sese essert hic morbus; symptomata autem graviora observantur, ubi calor magnus cum multa humiditate conjungitur ." Oslisli anni tenipe/late, sese essert hic morbus; symptornata autem graviora observantur, ubi calor magnus cum multa humiditate conjungitur."8

Footnotes

1 Extract from a London paper, of August 13, 1793: "The plague, brought from Bulam, which first made its appearance at Grenada, has spread most alarmingly. Eighty persons died in one day at Grenada of this epidemic. The hurricane months just coming on, are not likely to make it less violent in its effects." (It appears by a subsequent paragraph in the same paper that the disease was ascertained to be the yellow fever.)

Extract from the Courier a London paper, of August 24. "Before the fleet left Antigua so great was the apprehension, entertained there of the plague, that all vessels from Grenada, were obliged to perform quarantine; and all letters from the latter island, were smoked at the former. The infection was reported to have reached Dominica."

Extract from the Observer, a London paper, of August 25. "The plague, we are distressed to hear, has made its appearance in several of our West India islands. At Grenada, and Dominica, the symptoms are said to be highly alarming."

Extract from a Kingston paper, of October 12. "The islands of Barbadoes and Dominica continue to be afflicted with a malignant fever; about 300 white inhabitants have perished in the former, and near 500 in the latter.

2 To any enquirer I am ready to communicate the name of the supercargo, and the name of the brig."

3 I do hereby declare, that I was at Marcus Hook late in July, when a woman, who had been landed there from one of the vessels lately from Cape Francois, died; that I was informed by a French person, a neighbour, that she died of the yellow fever; that this person burned a quantity of tar at the door, for the purpose, as he informed me, of purifying the air. JOHN MASSEY

4 My information of the death of this person is derived from a letter written by Dr. William Martin to Dr. Currie.

5 Major Hodgdon and others can testify to the truth of this.

6 Hillary on diseases of Barbadoes, page 146.

7 Lining, Essays and observations, political and literary, vol. II. page 406.

8 Bruce, quoted by Lind on hot climates, 227.

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Transcribed and submitted by Marjorie B. Winter. February 28, 2005. Please address any questions to her at

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