The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-11-30
MigratiOns of Yellow Fever.

Yellow fever, like the cholera, is one
of the great migrating diseases. Start
ing from some point within the tropics,
it travels steadily onward from point to
point as long as it does not meet freez-
ing weather; and it travels northward
by nce-comparatively seldom
to the southwark of the zone from
which it sets out. Thus Brazil has suf-
fered comparatively little from its cpl
demic visitations, though, as we shall
see, the disease planted its germs long
ago in Rio de Janeiro, on the extreme
southern limit of the tropics. But its
favorite course is toward the north.
Upon our Atlantic coasts" says DR..
j. G. Mott, a careful student and OBJ
server of its phenomena, "as on the
coast of the Mediterranean, it comes
from time to time in one of those i'm
mense waves that know no bounds and
stops at no impediments. The distance
to which the disease extends seems to
depend much upon the strength of the
wave; it first strikes the Gulf, and gen.
eraJIy goes no farther. Occasionally
it will break over the peninsula of Flor
ida and reach Savannah and Charles
ton. In 1856, after many years of i'm
munity, it struck Norfolk with full
force, and only few ripples, as in
1858, 1886, 1870, have for half a century
reached the Delaware River and the
Bay of New York" And the same
observer, writing eight years ago, adds
some words which have a grave sig
nificance to-day: yellow fever, after
4 long absence, never makes its reap
pearance in our Northern cities with
out warning from the Gulf Of Mexi-
co. 1t is seen not only for months, but
often for several years, in vigorous ac-
ton in its native habitat before it leaps
over its accustomed bounds; but when
once on the tramp, 1t may travel from
Buenos Ayres to Quebec, leaving more
graves in its track than Asiatic cholera.
There is reason to fear that one of these
eruptions is now marshaling its forces.n
Let us glance at the course of one of
these typical epidemics the one, for
instance, which started as far away as
Rio de Janeiro, twenty-eight years ago,
and travelled in six years all the way to
New York-a journey of nearly 1000
miles-in a great circle. A great many
years before, SO many that the inhabi-
tants of Rio had lost all recollection or
tradition of the fact, the yellow fever
had visited their city; but now the cpl
demic broke upon them like lightning
from clear sky. This outbreak" says
Dr. Mott, commenced in Rio in Janu-
airy, 1850, and travelled night and day
for six years, making its. expiring eff
fort in New York Bay ins 1856. | had
my eye upon this epidemic from its
commencement watching its steady
course and rayages along the Atlantic,
Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico for
several thousand miles. When it struck
New Orleans 1881 it was clear to my
mind that our own coast was doomed,
and before it reached Mobile | was so
certain it would come that | moved my
family into the healthy pine hills, seven
miles from the town, where the disease
had never been. But, in spite of all
my prudence, the disease not only came
to Mobile, but followed my family out
to Spring Hill, where | lost four of my
children in one week. "-Dr. T. NJ
Coo'a, in Harper's Magazi,se for Decen,-
hon.