An inquiry into the cause of the prevalence of the yellow fever in New-York / by Valentine Seaman.

  • Seaman, Valentine, 1770-1817.
Date:
[1798]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the cause of the prevalence of the yellow fever in New-York / by Valentine Seaman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    my knowing much about what was going on out of doors, or of the state of the city, either as favouring health, or threatening dis- ease. However, I did not understandthat there was much alarm of Yellow Fever that year. Probably there was little or none. Nor, in 1793, was the alarm of Yellow Fever heard of among us, excepting horn a few solitary cases imported from Philadel- phia, and which was lost in the fate of the unfortunate individu- als who had brought it from its source, without the least injury to the healths of our citizens, either in the capacity of friends, nurses, physicians, or neighbours; none of these patients, as far as I could Itarn, having been permitted to seat themselves in places abound- ing with putrefying substances. The complaint in the year 1794, appeared to such a degree, as to occasion considerable uneasiness in the minds of many of the citizens. The Committee for preventing the introduftion of contagious diseases, met regularly to establish measures for the welfare of the city. To them, in a communication made the nth of 9th month (September), among other circumstances, I intimated as a reason lor believing that it was supported by causes within our- selves, Tnat most of the patients that had been, or then were, affected with dangerous fevers, were either such as resided in the neighbourhood ot the slips, (which then were or lately had been cleaning out) or whose employment led them to frequent those places; as cartmen, measurers, labourers, &c. at least such was the situation of the cases that I had heard or known of, and respecting which I had taken some pains to inform myself. I then had, at that early part of the season, attended four patients; u and they were all of that description. Two of them were boat- men, who lay at the New-slipj another lived not far from it; and the business of the fourth obliged him to frequent the slips. It was observed, that during the very time that these persons were taken sick, the Mud-turtle (as the machine was called, the temporary suspension of whose operations was the object of that communication) was performing its pestiferous purgations on this filthy slip. In 1795, that part of the town that bore the chief burthen of our calamity, was remarkably distinguished by peculiarity of cir- cumstances and situation (aided by the singular regularity of our rains), seemingly well calculated for the accumulation and decom- position of all kinds of perishable animal and vegetable substances. (Webster's Collection of Papers on Bilious Fevers.) The chief prevalence of the disease in 1796, seemed evidently fixed where, from our former experience, we ought reasonably to have expected it. For no doubt, at that time, the neighbour- hood of the Whitehall, from the nature of materials wherewith a large dock was there filling up, aided by the noisome exhalations, Foil. No. 1. E