Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-11-11
THE FEVER AND RESULT.

Now that the yellow fever pestilenct
has passed from our doors, and the evil
effects Of such calamity have been
sorely felt by the business community
and the citizens generally, it may be well
TO look back to the facts of the case.
With about forty thousand of the regular
population ofthe city remaining, we have
had two hundred deaths; that is to say,
one.half per cent, or one person to every
two hundred inhabitants. Happening to
be in New York city when the fever
broke out here, we learned that they were
"dyiug in Memphis at the rate Of fifty q
day" But knowing that rumor usually
multiplied the truth ten fold, we came
back, prepared to expect what we found
The yellow fever in Memphis, with
greater alarm on account of it than the
extent of sickness warranted. We have
seen men die in as large a proper
ton to population in other places,
without it ever occurring to any
one to fly from pestilence, and this only
because no name was given to the dis
ease. Just cry ont cholera or yellow
fever and give ten cases to support the
rumor of either, and you will get up
stampede which fifty cases Of the more
fatal iyphus fever or pneumonia would
not produce. With the exception of one
locality five hundred yards square, if
there had been no name given to. the
disease which prevailed, and which may
not have been rightly named, and no
publication on the subject, and no alarm
caused by sensational conversations Of
those, who, in the late stagnation Of
business, had little else to do but to Cos
sip, the existence of yellow fever here
would have been unknown to nine
tenths of our population. We mean
that the mortality Except from the fact
tina, prominent men were stricken down
by III has not been sufficient Of itself TO
arrest iheattention and cause any great
alarm among business people in a
busy and thriving time. Aud we doubt
much whether any place can be found
on the continent where, from yellow or
from other fever or causes, men have
never been known to die from some
cause known or unknown; at as great a
rate as this one-half Of one per cent
mortality among forty thousand people
in the whole and the sickliest month of
the year.
We have lost many valuable citizens
aud dear friends. Death is always the
very king Of terrors, though not always
an enemy. We have known some to fly
to his arms when seeking to escape from
them. Some left here only to die of
cholera in St Louis or Of other diseases
in other places, who probably might
have been well at home. "In the midst
of life we are in death as trUlyi in one
place as another. And il should be re-
membered for the credit Of our city that
yellow fever is not indigenous to our soil,
that it is an exotic not likely to be ac-
clinated in this latitude, that this is the
second visit, the first being twelve years
ago, and that the disease was already
diminishing before the appearance
of the frost which in New Or
leans and Havana would be in
dispensible to its eradication. We have
had a disease here, from which one in
five attacked have died, but which was
at least so uncertainty defined as yellow
fever as to occasion disagreement among
our physicians as to the true name
which should be given to it. 1t would
be disrespeetful to the able men Of the
medical profession in this city to say
that such disagreement existed, if a very
large proportion Of the cases had not
lacked much Of being clearly defined
yellow fever. And If we have had the
genuine disease, there is no doubt Il has
been much modified by our unfriendly
climate
On the whole We have occasion to be
thankful to the Benevolent Disposer Of
Events that so few have fallen, and for
the lightness Of the calamity as compared
with that Of other cities which the dis
ease has reached. And we moreover
conclude that, since this is our severest
visitation, and we have seen the worst Of
the past. there are, after all, few cities Of
the world superior to this for being
exempt from the effects Of mismaiic dis
eases, while cases Of consumption, pneu-
mouia and typhoid fever are rare There is
a Law Of compensation in nature. II in
the low grounds Of the Mississippi Val