New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-01-04

fred W. Perry, of New Orleans, was read
before the American Health Association at
its recent session in New York:
The desire to exclude epidemic disease
seems to be universal among all civilized
and halfcivilized people, but unfortunately
the means used have not been adopted
on scientific foundation, and have
proved 50 burdensome to commerce, and
at the same time so inefficient in
their results in excluding disease,
that they have been time and again adopted
aud abandoned. Quarantine has been en-
forced and abandoned already two or three
times at New York, Philadelphia and New
Orleans. These vacillatiOns have depended
on the changing theory OF the spread and
Development of epidemic diseases, and ideas
OF business expediency. large number OF
diseases have been supposed TO be caused
sby germs dltfused in the air. or upon some
aNcalled epidemic constitution of the air.
or TO be spontaneously generated. The
modNn investigation and observation OF
diseases which have become epidemic has
continually diminished the nun Der OF those
diseases NSlch were supposed to spread by
atmospheric, diffusion over long distances,
or which are Naused by some peculiar diffu-
sion of tie AIN and has rendered it almost
certain all epideH&c diseases spread only by
solid disease gernN which must be carried
IIoul place W place ny HUluau IuttIcOuTse.
Not long ago it was thNgeueral opinion that
eholera poison was in theSir, and it1ollowed,
of course that a quaraESine against the
disease was perfectly uselesS lt Is almost
needless TO say that this ideaNjn regard to
cholera has been thoroughly dis&roved: the
conclusions of the cholera conSSess. held
at Constantinople, were that cho1Nra de-
ponds on a solid living germ, and thSS it is
invariably propdgated by human lHNer-
hne ~ hos nlv odd n,
regard 20 yellow fever that it depended on
some contamination of the air This, of
course, soon met with The objection that
yellow fever does not appear suddenly 10
spread all over a city, which IL should do
if the poison was in the air, because each
individual is exposed at the same time to
the same influence. BIT it commences in
one locality and spreads gradually, though
sometimes irregularly, through whole city.
These obstinate facts required mOdtica-
ton OF the general air contamination the
DRY. The idea was Their advanced that the
air which was poisoned by yellow fever
formed An upper layer in the atmosphere,
and when thrown into waves the lowest
point of the wave touched the earth, and
produced yellow fever where it struck, The
steady progress of the disease from focus,
which has frequently been accurately meas
ured III feet per day, and the successive
sckening Of persons visiting or working in
an infected locality have pretty well broken
up, in the medical profession, these theo
ries.
These theories are the common resorts of
persons who are too lazy to trace the slow
personal communication of disease. The
solid germs in the case of yellow fever have
not indeed been demonstrated, but the close
analogy between yellow fever, smallpox
measles and scarlet fever, renders it beyond
i i,
theory applied to yellow fever is the only
one that will fully explain and make agree
the hitherto apparently contradictory facts
which have been observed In regard to the
disease. The spontaneous generation of
yellow fever in New Orleans has been de-
duced from the frequent cases in which it
has occurred, in which there seemed to be
no posi- bility of its importation; these have
been too numerous to be denied, bat they
have been evaded by the invention of
pa,udal or maSrial yellow fever. to whick
all indigenous cases are said to belong. The
yellow fever germ may be compared to the
cotton worm eggs The cotton worm was
unknown in this country thirtg-tive years
ago and must have been imported from some
foreign country, as MANY other insects de-
structIve to vegetation are known to have
been. The severity Of our weather in win
ter destroys all but very few; perhaps
lions survives until the next season-those
which are hid away 10 warm, sheltered
places. These increase during the first
warm. moist weather, requiring weeks or
months before they have become numerous
enough even to be noticed. The importa-
ton of the eggs OF the cotton worm in May
or June would cause earlier increase, and
therefore greater ravages.
The yellow fever germ is an exceedingly
tender organism OF foreign origiu, not de-
veloping below 70o Fahrenheit, and killed
by a temperature of 800. Out of millions
of disease germs which exist at the close of
an epidemic, only a few survive some of
our winters. and give rise 10 the cases of |
domestic, OF Indigenous yellow fever, the |
next season. In some winters all the dis |
ease germs are destroyed, and there are no |
domestic cases OF yellow fever the next |
summer, or perhaps for several summers, |
until the germs are again imported. Ii |
some germs remain over from previous |
summer. then the fever should occupy |
about the same neighborhoods for several |
successive years, which 1t has actually |
done in the Fourth District of this city |
New Orleansl for the past three years.
The fact OF the indigenous growth OF yell
low fever does not prevent the lmporta-
ton, or render useless a Qu8ranti |
The foreign yellow fever must be kept |
out, ard the domestic destroyed or de-
layed by disinfection. 1t has been found |
by past experience that yellow fever does |
not develop into an epidemic here in less
than fifty to sixty Gays. Indigenous cases |
rarely occur before August l, and this Is so
late that an epidemic can not follow. No |
epidemic has ever followed in this city |
when the first case has been as late as |
August l. Most, if not all OF our epidemics |
Of yellow fever have resulted from the m-
portation OF foreign yellow fever in May or |
June. # quarantine does nothing more |
than to prevent the importation of the |
foreign disease, it is worth far more than its |
actual cost to the State. The demonstra- |
ton that disease germs are solid bodies |
makes it logically possible to exclude for |
eign epidemic disease by absolute non-in- |
tercourse, or by destroying the disease |
germs in transit. The first is not to be en-
tertane0 Tor a moment, and ehe second has |
hitherto signally failed. Both cholera and |
yellow fever have been imported scores of |
Orleans, through so-called strict quaran- |
tine. Al these failures have occurred be- |
cause the quarantine was not based on |
sound principles.
The following are instances in which vel |
low fever has been brought through a strict |
quarantine:
lS7l-To New York, by steamship Cleo
patra.
1870 New Orleans, by brig Elizabeth
Ellen.
July, lS62--To New Orleans, from Key
West.
September, lSoo-Sew Orleans, from
Nassau.
IS7l-To New Orleans, by brig Mary
Pratt, from Cuba.
1S73-To New Orleans, by bark Val
paraiso, from Cuba
ls73-To Pensacola. BIZ ship Golden
Dream. from Cuba. Kept twenty one days
at quarantine.
IS70-To New Orleans, by steamship Ag