The New Orleans daily Democrat., 1878-11-22
THE YELLOW FEVER AND QUARAN-
TINE.

nOn-interCOurse with tropical countries will
alone protect this city and the Southwest
from visitations of yellow fever. The Yellow
Fever Commission, in their report to the
Public Health Association, now sitting in
Richmond, Va, takes the same ground. Emf
| ncnt physicians are divided in opinion on
| this grave question, and public feeling here
| naturally runs very strongly and aggrcss-
| lively with those who oppose such extreme
and rigid measures.
A quarantine amounting to absolute non
Intercourse for five months Of the year will OF
course, greatly impair our present commerce
with the West Indies an d seriously interfere
with the grand and attractive scheme Of es-
tabIishng lines Of steamers between this city
and the ports Of Mexico and Brazil which
would bring to us q rich trade. These are i'm
portant interests to sacrifice and impair, for,
In great measure, the future growth and
prosperity of Now Orleans depend upon
them.
It Is held by many OF our leading citizens
that, IL SO rigid quarantine as that suggest
ed by The distinguished president of the Board
of Health and the eminent physicians and
scientists who compose the Yellow Fever Com
mission be necessary to protect the city from
yellow fever epdomics the true policy for us
to adopt is to recognize the fact that New Or
leans is a yellow fever city, and then regulate
our trade, society and general interests on that
theory; throw open the port to all vessels
from all ports, and let there be- toward the
yel]ow fever season, q hcgira Of the unaccli-
mated
We have been much disposed to accept this
proposition and advocate it. But there are
we fear, insurmountablc obstacles to it's suc-
cess BY this policy we would certainly
disembarrass our trade with the countries
to the south Of us and might give it some
impetus, But we would lose infinitely more
than we would gain. So soon as that
policy was innugurated every city, town
and neighborhood in. Texas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas
and Kentucky would establish against us a.
quarantine. supported by shotguns with 80
great q degree Of surveillance and rigor that
noninterCourse would be the result. From July
until November, and possibly December, our
intercourse and trade with those States
would be broken up and destroyed. In year
or two those communities would become en-
tirely aienated from New Orleans and West
ern and Eastern cities completely absorb
their trade Even the current Of the trade of
localities almost within our own neighbor-
hood would be set In q direction opposite to
New Orleans, and 1t would not be many years
before we would find our city dwndling into
insignficance.
The march and ravages Of the late epidemic
throughout the country has filled the people
of the whole Southwest with terror, and If we
do not inspire them with confidence in our
efforts to protect our city from q new vista-
tion of the pestilence they will sht1n us as it
we were lepers and draw around us o Gordon
Of shotgun quarantines, which no law or
power will be able to resist.
But Is 1t necessary for us to resort to ab-
soluto non-intercourse to protect ourselves
from pcstience from al road and preserve
our internal trade. Here is great uues-
ton for physicians and scientists to con-
slider and determine. Ultimately the germ
and poison of yellow fever may be discovered,
though we are certain the discovery will not
be made by the present yellow fever commits
sion nor by tho present meeting of the Public
Health Association. But has not evidence been
sufficient to establish the sanitary
and atmospheric conditions which precede an
epidemic and under which the germ or poison
propagates itself, whether it be endemic or i'm
ported? The late DR., Warren Stone in a lee
turo delivered in New York o year or two
after the great epidemic of 1859, stated that
he had never visited the hospitals Of that city
in the summer that he did not find distinctly
marked cases Of yellow fcver there In q let |
ter to the DEMOCRAT, during the late epidemic,
DR.. D. Warren Brickell one of the most ex-
percncc1 and distinguished physicians of
this city, referring to the statement that Beast
Butler had excluded the fever from this city by
a rigid quarantine, related the fact that, during
Buffers dictatorship here, he was called to
see person sick in boarding g-house. He found
the patient, captain of schooner from one of
the West India islands, in the last stage of
yellow fever; he had black vomit In reply
to the doctors inquiries the sick man said
that he had bribed his vessel through Buffers
quarantine, and was i'll when he passed the
station and arrived in the city. The man died |
The boarding house was filled with bOarders. |
yet there was not q single person in the house
who contracted the disease. There has scarce
[y ever been asummer in which there were not
cases Of yellow fever in this city, either Orgi-
mating here or imported. Yet there have been
many years when we have had no epidemic |
and when the fever ended with these sporadic
)r imported cases.
It seems to US very clear from these facts,
resting on the most eminent authority, that |
the yellow fever never becomes epidemic, and |
is never dangerous visitor in New Orleans, |
unless there exist peculiar sanitary or atmos-
pheric conditions essential to the propagation
oS the poison. The question Of the future
may be: What is this poison? But are not !
these the questions Of the present: What are
The atmospheric conditions under which the |
poison Of yellow fever, be it what it may, |
itself and fills our cities and
towns with pestlence and death What |
are the atmospheric conditions which
precede epidemics? Is it possible, by
. strict and igid system of observ-
atoms, extending through winter and |
spring, Of the barometrical, thermometrical
and hvprOmetrical conditions of the atmo