Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1867-10-12
NEWS AND MISCELLANY.
A Terrible DIsease--The Blue Plague Its
Character.
Iron Tie New York World. !

snAF6GteF.
From the New York World
Six more of the emigrants who were
IN full health on Thursday morning,
and took their breakfast as usual on
board the Illinois, died yesterday. The
suddenness of the attack seems to be
one of the characteristics of this fever
Recent examinations BY some of our
most skilled physicians, attest that the
victims had many symptoms of cholera
but their bodies were warm. The eyes
were sunken and the body blue. The
victim is rapidly Frustrated, and from a
nervous headache he soon finds himself
so debilitated as to be utterly helpless,
though in the full possession of all his
faculties with the exception of active
power. In violent cases the disease
operates with as fearful and fatal rapid
ity as some of the most deadly poisous,
while In others its progress is slow be-
fore reaehinga crisis, but after that it's
work is accomplished with as great
celebrity.
af DR. HARRIS OPINION.
The disease has thus far killed about
half of all who have been attacked by it.
In not a single case were the first
symptoms, saving the vomiting and
purging, of the kind that uniformly
characterizes Asiatic cholera All the
medical gentlemen who attended in the
cases observed that the purgipg was
dark and bilious and that IN no in
stance were these discharges thin,
watery and serious; moreover, the cases
that were found upon the hospital ship
on Saturday exhibit no waste of the
Serious or watery portion of tue blood,
but they seem TO be Suffering from some
intense poison that affected the brain,
and the system of organic nerves. The
venous blood was everywhere congested
in the capillary or superficial vessels of
the skin and mucous membrane, and
this congestion gave the purpuric or
blue color. This being the fact and
the skin being warm, the breath warm,
the voice natural, the secretions from
the liver aud the kidneys excessive.
and rot one of the pathognomonic, or
invariably present symptoms of cholera
having been witnessed in any of the
cases, it was deemed understandable TO
regard these as cases of cholera, but
what they are, and what produced
them, it might not be easy to
state with absolute certainty. For
several months past disease has been
prevailing in various parts of Ireland,
which is popularity termed there "BL1ck
TgphuS." or "P,0purie 4ypbaS." The
information which DIR. Mapother, the
health officer of Dublin, and DIR. Farr
have communicated concerning this
disease, during the past few weeks,
leads to the belief that the disease is
not in any case personally contagious,
but that il has n period of incubation
in which the infection that produces it
may continue to operate and still show
no obvious sign of its presence until
it suddenly prostrates its victim. Thus
far, this blue tpphus has prevailed
mostly in crowded, damp and badly
policed localities DIR. Mapother thinks
it is not the famine typhtS, for thus far
those who have been seized by it have
not been ADMINISTRATION, and just
what it is, even he, who is regarded as
one of the highest authorities on sani-
tary science, does not venture yet to
decide.
DIR. Farr thinks it has some connec-
ton with the present defective diet of
the Irish people and that it is associa-
ted with the ordinary typhoid poison.
Both of these authorities hesitate to
pronounce it identical with the eere6rO-
spinal feper that recently was epidemic
in the vicinity of Dantzic and the west
ern provinces of Russia. The passen-
gers on board the Illinois are literally
shut up with death and humanity, and
sanitary prudence demand that they
shall be placed on shore, and so dis
persed and cleansed as to arrest the ep
idemic No physician in Europe con-
siders the disease contagious, and 1T is
not probable that in our American
towns it will gain any foothold whatev-
er. The only portion of our popula-
tion which has any reason to fear it, IS
that situated in unhealthy marshy
tracts, or unwholesome tenement houses
where. in addition to wretched accom-
they are subjected to an in
sufficiency of, or tainted food.