Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-10-03
THE BLUE PLAGUE.
Diagnosis of the DIsease-Eur0PeaE
Authorities on the Subject.

Diagnosis of the DIsease-Eur0Pean
Authorities on the Subject.
Six more of the emigrants who were in
full health On Thursday morning and took
their breakfast as usual on board the Hi,
nois, died yesterday. The suddenness of
the attack seems to be one of the charac-
teristics of this fever Recent examina-
tions by some of our most skilled physi-
clans attest that the victims had many
symptoms of the cholera, but their bodies
were warm. The eyes were sunken and
the body blue. The victim is rapidly pros
trated, and from a nervous headache ne
soon finds himself so debilitated as to be
utterly helpless, though in the full posses
sion of all his faculties with the exception
of active power. In violent cases the dis.
ease operates with as fearful and fatal "a
pidity as some of the most deadly poisons,
while in others its progress is slow before
reaching a crisis, but after that its work is
accomplished with as great CELEBRITY.
DR.. HARRIS OPINION.
The disease has thus far killed about one
half Of all who have been attacked by it.
In not a single case were the first symp
toms, having the vomiting and purging, of
the kind that uniformly characterizes Ash
attic cholera. All the medical gentlemen
who attended in the cases observed that
the purging was dark and bilious and that
in no instance were these discharges thin,
watery and Serious; moreover, the cases that
were found upon the hospital ship on Sat
urday exhibit no waste of the Serious or
watery portion of the blood, but they seem
to be suffering from some intense poison
that affected the brain, and the system of
organic nerves. The yenous 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, and the kidneys excessive, and
not one of the pathognomonic, or invaria-
bly, present symptoms of cholera having
been witnessed in any of the cases, it was
deemed unwarrantable 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 sew
eral months past a disease has been pre-
vailing in various parts of ireland, which
is popularity termed there "Bidck Ttphus,"
or "Purpuric 45phus." The information
which DR.. Mapother, the health officer of
Dublin, and DR.. Farr have communicated
concerning this disease in the past few
weeks, lead to the belief that the disease is
not in any case personally contagious, but
that it has 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 1
victim. Thus far, this blue typhus has pre-
vailed mostly in crowded, damp, and badly
policed localities. DIR. Mapother thinks it
is not the famine tuphus, for thus far those
who have been seized by it have not been
famine-stricken, and Just what it is, even
he, who is regarded as one of the highest
authorities on sanitary science, does not
venture yet to decide.
DR.. Farr thinks it has some connection
with the present defective diet Of the Irish
people, and that it is associated with the
ordinary typhoid poison.
Both of these authorities hesitate to pro-
nounce it identical with the cerebro-spinal
teUsr that recently was epidemic in the VIZ
cinity of Dantzic and the western provinces
of Russia. The passengers 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
and cleansed as to arrest the
epidemic. No physician in Europe con-
siders the disease contagious, and it is not
probable thstin our American towns it will
gain any foothold whatever. The only por-
ton of our population which has any reason
to fear it, is that situated in unhealthy
marshy tracts, or unwholesome tenement
houses where, in addition to wretched &C
they are subjected to an
OF, or tainted food.-New York
World.