New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-05-31
Beware Of Yellow Jack.
From the New York Times.l

Last year the city of Barcelona, in Spain,
was almost depopulated by an epidemic OF
yellow fever. which was allowed to effect an
entrance through careless quarantine. The
scenes of the Middle Ages, during the vista
ton of plaques, required. This year the
same misfOrtunes, in more aggravated
form, are being witnessed at BuenOs Ayres.
A city of two or three hundred thousand in
habitants, whose former pride has been its
healthfulness, has, within few short weeks,
been desolated, there not being left sufh-
cient number of the living to nurse the sick
and bury the dead.
All social relations are sundered, all busi-
| ness is destroyed, and complete isolation is
established, except by occasional kilograms,
from the outside world. But it is needless
to recapitulate horrors which are fresh IN
the minds of our readers. We merely wish
to warn our authorities that there is no
good reason why the same horrors, perhaps
in somewhat mitigated degree, on account
of difference of climate, may not be Wit
messed in this city now, or during any sue
! ceeding summer.
It is we'll known that for a great many
| wears yellow fever was almost unheard OF,
except when stray cases were imported
from infected ports, at BuenOs Ayres or at
Rio Janeiro; but that for some years past it
has appeared regularly at these places, and
not until now in an alarming degree, and
not to such an extent as to compel ODE
dience to those plain rules of sanitary
science which undoubtedly would have
spared Barcelona and Buenos Ayres from
so terrible retribution
We know that epidemics sometimes move
in cycles; that, after a subsistence. extend
ing over longer or shorter period, they APP
pear with great malignity, and from no APP
anA Ia
again TO disappear. So it was, for instance,
with diptheria-a disease unknown, until
the present epidemic broke out, to the
present generation of physicians, but de-
scribed, in our medical histories, nearly
century ago. We also know that this and
other northern ports have been, in former
times, desolated by yellow fever. Is there
anything but our own watchfulness to pre-
vent the disaster overtaking us again
For the past ten years we have seen a
gradual annual increase of imported cases.
Last year, according to statement of DR..
Lente, in a public address recently noticed
in this paper, over one hundred vessels en-
tered the port with yellow fever, and eighty
three cases occurred on Governors Island
notwithstanding the strenuous exertiOns of
able military surgeons, well acquainted with
the disease, aided by the strictest military
discipline.
Had these cases appeared on this island,
with the lax regulations which have been
observed in the case of the present ept-
demic of smallpox, what would have been
the result contagious or infectious dis
ease, imported into country or neighbor-
hood, does not usually spread as an
epidemic until it meets with certain
combination of conditions; or, as Sydenham
expressed it, an epidemic constitution of
the atmosphere, of which we know nothing
practically, but the ruinous operation of
which we constantly witness. This cpl
demic constitution we may not be able to
Obviate, but the conditions tending to give
it increased activity should awaken all our
efforts now, when there is yet time, for it is
too late when the disease has already COM
menced to assume an epidemic character
1t must be unnecessary to point out to
our authorities what these conditions are,
as they are well enough acquainted with
them. If we can not place ourselves in such
position as to be wholly exempt from the
spread of the pestilence, then this is an
additional reason for adopting more strin-
gent measures for preventing its entrance
among us. And of what value, we would
ask, is quarantine which allows the seeds
OF pestilence to be cast in protusion ON our
shores from the Narrows up to our very
city,
A few years ago the bedding from in
fected ships was thus thrown overheard,
and fioated ashore, as it is now doing, on
the Long Island side; and, as cOnse-
quence, yellow fever spread rapidly and
fatally all along that shore up to the city of
Brooklyn, creating a panic. Fortunately,
the condition of the atmosphere which is
favorable to its spread did not exist, and
the disease was confined within a certain
limit. How often may we expect Provi-
ience to protect us in this way if we fail to
help ourselves! Let us remember BARGE
iona and Buenos Ayres, and be wise in
time.