Volume 4 — AN ACCOUNT OF SPORADIC CASES OF YELLOW FEVER. AS THEY APPEARED IN PHILADELPHIA, IN 1800.

The weather in the month of January was less cold than is common in that month. Catarrhs, the cynanche trachealis, and bilious pleurisies were prevalent in every part of it. A few cases of yellow fever occurred likewise during this month.

Several cases of erysipelas appeared in February.

The month of March was unusually healthy.

The weather was warm in April, and the city as healthy as in March.

It was equally so in May and June. The spring fruits appeared early in the latter month, in large quantities, and were of an excellent quality. Locusts were universal in June. They had not appeared since the year 1783. A record from the journal of the Swedish missionaries was published at this time, which described their appearance in 1715, in which year it was said to be very healthy.

On the 14th of June there was a severe thunder gust, with more lightning than had been known for seven years before.

There fell, during all the months that have been mentioned, frequent and plentiful showers of rain, which rendered the crops of grass luxuriant in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia.

The winds at this time were chiefly from the south-east.

A few intermittents appeared in June, which yielded readily to the bark.

On the 16th day of June, Dr. Physick informed me he had a black boy under his care with the yellow fever.

In July, the hooping cough, cholera infantum, and some cases of dysentery and bilious fever appeared in the city.

On the 30th of July, Dr. Pascalis informed me that he had lost a patient on the fifth day of a yellow fever.

In August, the dysentery was the principal form of disease that prevailed in the city.

On the 22d of this month, a woman died of the yellow fever in Gaskill-street, under the care of Dr. Church.

On the 28th and 30th, there fell an unusual quantity of rain. The winds were south-west and north-west during the greatest part of the summer months. The latter were sometimes accompanied with rain.

On the 11th of September, a clerk of Mr. Levi Hollingsworth, and, on the 12th, a clerk of Mr. John Connelly, died with the yellow fever.

A plentiful shower of rain fell on the night of the 21st of this month.

About this time there appeared one and twenty cases of yellow fever in Spruce-street, between Front and Second-streets. They were all in the neighbourhood of putrid exhalations. Fourteen of them ended fatally.

No one of the above cases of malignant fever could be traced to a ship, or to a direct or indirect intercourse with persons affected by that disease.

While Philadelphia was thus visited by a few sporadic cases only of yellow fever, it was epidemic in several of the cities of the United States, particularly in New-York, Providence, in Rhode Island, Norfolk, and Baltimore. In the last named place, it was publicly declared by the committee of health to be of domestic origin.

The dysentery was epidemic, at the same time, in several of the towns of Massachusetts and New-Hampshire. It was attended with uncommon mortality at Hanover, in the latter state.

This difference in the states of health and sickness in the different parts of the United States must be sought for chiefly in the different states of the weather in those places. The exemption of Philadelphia from the yellow fever, as an epidemic, may perhaps be ascribed to the strength and vigour of the vegetable products of the year, which retarded their putrefaction; to frequent showers of rain, which washed away the filth of the streets and gutters; and to the perfection of the summer and autumnal fruits.

The months of November and December this year were uncommonly healthy. During the former, several light shocks of earthquakes were felt in Lancaster and Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, and in Wilmington, in the state of Delaware.