The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1855-08-17
roN.CoNrAGloUsNEss OF YELLOW

NON E1eo ~ . $500
FEVER.
The Petersburg Express has been Furnished
by physician Of chat place. with the follow
inc extracts from q" Treatise on the Practice
Of Medicine" by DIR. Geo. B. Wood, OF Phil
adelphia, who is confessedly one of the most
eminent medical men Of the country. Dis,
cussing the mooted question, whether yellow
fever Is contagious or not, DR.. Wood says:
.Ths eonta ejoss nature OF Yellow Fever has been
msiUtained upon the grounds, J. Tbs, Il aimost a..
sh,n.S and unload: fhst it has thus been carried
"a isolated spots where the dsease had never been
tom an ipfected neiahborhood into healthy one,
have become the centres Of new infection and :.
That Ike contssoua disessss In general 1t cannot be
Ant tbese arsune nts are met BY powerfully oppo-
s,us facts Thua In hospitals, situated In healthy
districts, though crowded with yellow fever pesents
the disease never impaired to the nurses ana other
a.tepdants. From vessels arriving in healthy port
yellow fever patients often landed. sometimes 10
a.. the a.e..s prevails With m
lad districts only those parsons attacked who re-
side In or visit the infected apot; and sezeo
healthy parts OF the city, do not mpsrt the disease
to those about them. Hundreds OF instances occur
la extensive epidemics, In which patients onenalIy
seis I'd in cities and scattered through the country
sod vet the instances exceedingly rare, In wncn
II 10 even pretended that the disease 10 thu COMM
nic.ted Attempts have been made to
Of those affected but without success; and sven me
black vomit has been Swallowed With impunty. Az
10 obvious that the argument drawn from tue exsW
ton s ,rded by one attack OF disease 10 only anaos
cal and 10 observing Of weight unless supported
by positive facts"
Mention is made of the fact, that in the
year 1883, when yellow fever prevailed cpl
demicalIy with great violence in New Or
leans, and various other towns on the Mis-
| sissippi river, below Memphis, it did not reach
| the last mentioned town, nor any point above
| it, in the epidemic form. Notwithstanding
sixty-two cases of the disease were landed at
Memphis, from the towns below, and carried
through the streets of the city, in open vehi-
Giles, for mile to the hospital, in no instance,
| either within the hospital, where they were
| distributed indiscriminately among the pa
tients, or in the city at large, was the disease
| communicated.
Such facts as these seem to us to settle the
question. If it cannot be propagated by
| innocuIation or swallowing the black vomit
we think that the apprehensions of the most
timid may be quieted, as far as contagion is
| concerned
Referring to means for the prevention Of
| the disease, DR. Wood remarks
| 1.-THE prevention of the disease is even more i'm
portant than its treatment In relation to individ
uas, when circumstances prevent their leaving til &
place in which the disease prevails, they should So
iect residence in the highest and hssthiest spots
should sleep preferably in the highest part OF the
house; should avoid the night air; should abstain
from fatiguing exercise exposure to alterations OF
temperature and excuses of all kinds; should e,dea
vot to maintain cheerful and confident temper
should nutritious and wholesome, but not slim
Waiting diet; and If compelled to enter any spot 10
| which the atmosphere il known to be infected
should take care not TO dc so whom the stomsch IL
empty or the body exhausted by Precipitation or fs
tisue Attempts to guard against the disease BY low
| diet, bleeding snd purgiug, or the use of mercury
futile, and even worse than futile The feeblel
the system the less it able to resist the entrance
| of the poison, or its influence when absorbed.
1.-THE public also have important duties In thit
| complaint. Letting alone the vexed question OF
| quarantine, may insist the necessity of estsb
fishing hospitals in healthy situations of removing
a. far as possible all of noxious fuvia, oil
correcting Immediately all such bad effluva whore
known to exist by fumigationa, with chlorine, and
finally In our Northern cities, where the limits oil
the infected neighborhoods are often we'll defined
of removing the Inhabitants from within these linn
Its aud excluding the entrance of others by the tenn
porary erection of fences the streets ave
| Dues. In places where the residents have becom
exempt from the disease by habitus exposure to thu
cause, 1t will be sufficient to and exciud
strangers and children from the infected districts >