Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1873-10-23

| tue HtAma w ~" N""~NT" - -
/. Stone, in a paper published Only a short
time before his death, refers to the cause
5 of .the fever TO the atmosphere, and
saws that the influence is waited from
the propagating centers, say from the
. Spanish Main 70 the Mexican coast in
the latitude Of Vera Cruz, by a,mos'
pherie waves, and therefore no amount
: of street cleaning or quarantine will
avail will not say that the passage
Of organic germs from the West ladies'
to New Orleans, or even to Mem
phis, is an impossibilily, though
iii think il improbable. Dust is
carried upward from the elevated
plains in the northern part OF South
America by gyratory winds, and is
borne from thence by an upper current
TO the neighborhood Of the Azones,
where it begins to shower down, and
frequently falls on the decks Of passing
ships. Commodore Maury calls atten-
ton to this phenomenon in his Physical
Geography of the Sea. II dust can be
waited thousands Of miles, organic germs
could be carried in the same way. But
we have no record Of the occurrence Of
the gyratory winds, nor do we know
that there is an upper current from south
to north. However, il is demanding too
much to ask for gyratory winds and up
per currents; might they not be borne
by any strong southerly wind, provided
they are endowed with animal life, and
have the powers Of locomotion and Of
keeping themselves aAoat in the air2 /
think so. But if they are not endowed
with animal life, and have not the pow
ers of locomotion, / scarcely think that,
be they ever so minute, or OF texture
ever SO light, they would resist the laws
of gravity during voyage from Havana
TO New Orleans, say for fifty or six
ty hours. That it is an influence, with
out being matter, l reject as unworthy
of the intelligence of this age. Doctor
Stone did not mean this; he was too
matter of fact, and had too much
common sense to believe in any
such mysterious stuff. If it is mat
ter, it cannot be inorganic matter,
else the cunning chemist would somehow
discover its existence, and it would not
be choice Of place-snd could not and
would not pass over South and Middle
Memphis and light down on North
Memphis; would not and could not pass
over Baton Rouge, Natchez, Vicksburg
jackson and Helena, and come on to a
small breadth of territory in Northern
Memphisl No, it is an organic germ.
Is it a variety of the yeast plant OF
in6nitessimal proportions, only discov-
cradle through the agency of the cleo
trio beam, and with no pronounced
shape under the microscope-only dustf
The California beer plant, a variety OF
yeast plant, only grows and propagates
in matrix of sweetened water. If the
yellow fever germ is another of the va
riety, may it not demand, as matrix,
| peculiar exhalation in the atmosphere
before il will propagate and thrive, and
then, using the air as medium, as the
beer plant does the sweetened water, ex-
pand and grow, and being inhaled,
poison the people? To this, however,
,there is a very grave objection. If it is
a poison floating in the air, liable to
create violent ferment in the blood,
and cause dire fevers, congestion and
death, why is only one animal liable to
inhale it? Wherefore is it liable to en-
ter only the mouth Of man? If it is an
inanimate poison it would enter the
mouth Of the horse as soon as 1t would
that ofthe man, and being there it would
be Just as liable to do harm TO the horse
as the man. In other words, any known
poison will kill most brutes as quickly as
men; and if this is poison floating
about, and liable to be inhaled by every
creature having lungs, why does it not
effect the creatures uniformly as does
morphine, strichnine or arsenicY This,
think, settles the question against the
organic germ being plant, and the
same argument holds good against the
poison being inorganic matter.
1t has animal life then, and it is within
the range of possibility to say that it
may be blown from Havana or Vera
Cruz to New Orleans. Yes, it is possible
but hardly probable. Germs so small as
to be beyond the ken of the microscope
must be of exceeding delicate organisms,
and in the passage would be likely to
perish in several ways: From showers of
rain; the poison of the saline exhalation
from the sea, and, if driven upward, by
the cool currents Of the upper
atmosphere. And why should
these argonauts fly over Pen
sacola and Mobile and land at New Or
leans; or why would they grant immun-
ity to all the towns and people from
here to New Orleans and select = pc
culiar spot in North Memphis; / may
be answered that they we're repealed by
some matter in the atmosphere at all
these points and places, and only found
congenial place at the spot called the
infected region. The answer is philoso-
phical. But Why in 1864 did the dis
ease rage in Charleston and Wilmington
under Confederate rule, and at New
-. EnInrnI rrle uifhnnl rnnL.