The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1878-08-23
YELLOW FEVER.

Editor Columbia Herald {lialE u +
!, AS the public mind is considerably
excited on the subject of yellow fever,
now prevailing in New Orleans, it
may be acceptable to your readers to
relation to its origin, mode of propaga-
ton, its contagious or infectious nature,
&C., and its transmissibility by the
person, clothing or goods arriving
from centres of infection, in healthy
localities. We shall not attempt a
review of the great discrepancies of
opinion, which have, from time to
time, been The source of heated and
acrimonious discussion among med
zeal men; some contending that it is
always of exotic sorigin, and others as
stoutly maintaining, that it is of
domesticSo origin. yellow fever is dis
ease, Sti gene,ais. It is dependent for
for Its origin and propagation on a
Specific Niyxs, distinct In its character
and properties from eaW and every
other noxious agent, constituting q
ssnaoteTies asos6i," It is believed, with
good reason, that this toxic principle,
| or miasma, is animalcular. These in
finitissimal entities or animalcules are
so inconceivably minute that the most
powerful lenses, even those magnifying1
5000 diameters, have failed to demon
strate them. It is thought by our most
learned, sagacious and discriminating
physicians that this anilnalcular virus
or miasma may be generated when
ever and wherever favorable atnos-
pheric and terrestrial influences are
combined with idiomiasma or crowd
poison, incident I. to accumulations of
human excreta, decaying organic re-
mains whether vegetable or animal, |
and general neglect to remove the het-
erOgenious accumulationS about large
towns, cities and commercial centers !;
in word, neglect of cleanliness and |
the general principles of hygiene. This
aninalcular. poison may be trans
ported to indefinite distances, by
clothing, bedding or goods, brought
from an infected place to a healthy
one, provided, alsoesys, that the atmos-
phere and telluric conditions of the
healthy place be such that the disease
These animalcular, yellow fever germs,
are al.oays promptly killed or rendered
innocuous by frost; nor can they live,
or be propogated in pure atmosphere.
In an atmosphere favorable to the
activity of these germs, they propagate
with great celebrity, and the disease
thus becomes contagious or infectious,
in a yelIoso Jeuer atmosphere, whilst in
a pure or Oas-afeltoto JeUer atmosphere,
it is no more contagious or infectious
than common chill and fever. These {
facts, now well established as such,
for the great discrepancies of
opinion among physicians about the
or infectious nature of yell
ow fever. This view of the origin !
md nature of yellow fever poison c
'eadily accounts for the facility with l
which it may be imported from foreign !
parts, and the great rapidity with l
which it spreads when once the germ 9
s planted in favorable soil. 1t also :
IS readily accounts for its domestic v
'rigin. In 1856, yellow fever germs t
we're brought from New Orleans to {
by the steamboats,, in the t
month of October of that year. The r
condition of the atmos- a
here, and all other conditions, aerial a
nd terrestrial, being favorable to the t,
erms, yellow fever spread over the 3
oomed village, like fire in dry stubble, n
nd in 80 days her population was n
aore than decimated. Many fled to b
he country after they had received the o.
affection, sickened with the scourge, n
nd some died; but in no single in
lance was the disease communicated n,
} the nurses and attendants outside IS
town, simply because the atmos- n,
here of the country was unsuitable to
ne propagation of the disease germs. =
Trinity, Monroe, and s
lany intervening plantations on the
yer, were likewise infected by the
'ourge, yet not one single instance ,
where the subject of infection se
ad not direct intercourse with the in
ok, ia the river galley. So many de
of similar character have a.
anspired during the epidemic pre- all
alence of this pestilence in New Of
and other inter tropical towns De
III CLUES, THAT inc truth OF the doctrine an
)OVe advanced, seems to be irrefutabIy no
tn blished II NNprc1,p an
" an
de
home industry in buying tol