Volume 4 — AN ACCOUNT OF SPORADIC CASES OF YELLOW FEVER. AS THEY APPEARED IN PHILADELPHIA, IN 1801.

The month of January was intensely cold. In February it became more moderate. The diseases, during these two months, were catarrhs and a few pleurisies.

In March and April there fell an unusual quantity of rain. The hay harvest began in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia on the 28th of May. A few mild cases of scarlatina anginosa occurred during these months.

In June the weather was dry and healthy.

On the 8th of July, a case of yellow fever occurred in the practice of Dr. Stewart. About the 15th of the month, a patient died with it in the Pennsylvania hospital. Dr. Physick informed me that he had, at the same time, two patients under his care with that disease. Several cases of the measles appeared in the south end of the city during this month. In every part of it, the weather was warm and dry, in consequence of which there were no second crops of grass, and a smaller quantity than usual of summer fruits and vegetables. The winds were less steady than they had been for seven years. They blew, every two or three days, from nearly every point of the compass.

On the 4th of August there fell a considerable quantity of rain, which was succeeded by cool and pleasant weather. The cholera morbus was a frequent disease among both adults and children in the city, and the dysentery in several of the adjoining counties of the state.

A number of emigrant families arrived this month from Ireland and Wales, who brought with them the ship fever. They were carefully attended, at the lazaretto and the city hospital, in airy rooms, by which means they did not propagate the disease. Contrary to its usual character, it partook of the remissions of the bilious fever, probably from the influence of the season upon it.

In September there were a few extremely warm days. In the beginning and middle of the month a number of mild remittents occurred, and about the 22d there were five or six cases of yellow fever in Eighth-street, between Chesnut and Walnut-streets, in two houses ill ventilated, and exposed to a good deal of exhalation. I attended most of these cases in consultation with Dr. Gallaher. One of the persons who was affected with this fever puked black matter while I sat by his bed-side, a few hours before he died.

During the summer and autumn of this year, a number of cases of yellow fever appeared at New-Bedford, Portland, and Norwich, in the New-England states; in New-York; in some parts of New-Jersey; and in Northampton and Bucks counties, in Pennsylvania. It prevailed so generally in New-York, as to produce a considerable desertion of the city. In none of the above places could the least proof be adduced of the disease being imported. In Philadelphia its existence was doubted or denied by most of the citizens, because it appeared in situations remote from the water, and of course could not be derived from any foreign source.

It will be difficult to tell why the fever appeared only in sporadic cases in Philadelphia. Perhaps its prevalence as an epidemic was prevented by the plentiful rains in the spring months, by the absence of moisture from the filth of the streets and gutters, in consequence of the dry weather in June and July, by the vigour and perfection of the products of the earth, and by the variable state of the winds in the month of July. If none of these causes defended the city from more numerous cases of the yellow fever, it must be resolved into the want of a concurring inflammatory constitution of the atmosphere with the common impure sources of that disease.

On the 12th of November, about twelve o'clock in the night, an earthquake was felt in Philadelphia, attended with a noise as if something heavy had fallen upon a floor. Several cases of scarlet fever appeared in December, but the prevailing disease, during the two last autumnal and the first winter months, was the measles. I have taken notice that it appeared in the south end of the city in July. During the months of August and September it was stationary, but in October, November, and December it spread through every part of the city. The following circumstances occurred in this epidemic, as far as it came under my notice.