The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1878-08-31
THE FEvER's WORK.

The reports which come up from the Southwest
of the ravages of the yellow fever indicate that the
hopes felt few days ago that the disease was be-
ing stamped out have not been realized. The
number of deaths at New Orleans on Thursday,
ffty-eight, greater than any other one day
since the plague set in. The increase in the num-
Der of cases at Memphis is conspicuous, and for
the fearfully stricken little town of Grenada its
condition is sufficiently revealed by the statement
that on Thursday evening there not twenty
active men in the place. The fever has made its
appearance at Memphis, Vicksburg and various
other points along the Mississippi, and in the dis
trict between the Tennessee and the Gulf of Mex
ico and with all these omnous facts in view there
is only too much reason for the apprehension that
it will not be gotten under control until Nature
with the early fross, to the aid of the efforts
of men, 1t is difficult to imagine the full extent
of the distress and suffering prevailing in the in
fected communities. The disease is of the most
virulent type, and possesses some curious and
novel characteristics that battle even the expert
enced physicians who have fought it in former
years. Fifty thousand of the residents of New
Orleans are said to have fled from the city. Bust
ness is paralyzed, and panic prevails. In Gre
NADIA the dead hustled quickly into their graves,
in many instances without collins and with no re-
ligiOus services over them. Two gangs of negroes
are constantly employed one by day and the other
by night, in the labor of burial Food is growing
scarce, and railroad trains rush through the town
at the highest speed When the scOurge first
showed itself in Memphis, to which city it was
brought by passengers from New Orleans who had
run the quarantine, the authorities took prompt
precautionary measures The district in which it
was detected forcby depopulated, and the
people were transferred to an encampment several
miles out of town in a healthy locality. But in
spite of these measures the fever spread in the
city. Residents fled from their homes and left
them to the prey of thieves The crimes of the
housebreakers in some instances brought swift
retrbution, and they took the fever while in the
act of punderng AT points along the Mlsslsslp-
pi steamboats, in which the disease has broken out
have been cut off from communication with the
shore, and have been converted into pest houses.
1t seems that captains of steamers for the sake OF
the money offered, have undertaken to carry away
from New Orleans persons fleeing for safety. Some
of the latter brought the germs of disease with
them, and it developing itself during the voyage,
the vessels have been compelled to halt. Cotton
picking ought now to be under full Roadway, but
in the infected sections it languishes because of
the pestilence.
Such are few of the features of this awful Wis
itation that presented by refugees and cores
pondents As we have said, medical science and
experience are puzzled by certain OF the peculiar
phases of the disease. Ordinarily the victim
reaches a crisis on the third day of the attack,
when it can be told whether he will recover die
The rule does not stand good this year. The
patient may not take decided turn for the worse
on the third day, but continues in feeble condi-
ton that defes all efforts to rally him, and finally
sinks, dying apparently from utter exhaustion at
last Another phenomenal circumstance is the
spreading of the fever among the colored people.
Usually they are very slightly not at ALL affect
ed by it, but it is Selling upon them with as
fatal results as with the whites. The negroes
have generally been relied upon during the fever
to act as nurses and to perform other Offices for
the sick or dead, and their long immunity from
the fever has made them indifferent to it. But
now that it is among them their previous contempt
of it has given way to wild panic, and their use
fulness in times of such calamity has been lost
And it is not alone the negroes who are stricken
with this feeling of terror. 1t pervades all classes
and arises from the fatality of the disease and the
mysterious symptoms by which it is accompanied.
Persons attacked frequently sink into a mental
collapse, and with the conviction upon them that
they are doomed to DEATH the most strenuous eff
forts of physicians to relieve them fail. The alb
sence of courage and hope has disastrous infu-
ence. While noble, self-sacrifcing men and wo
contesting every step of the disease, risk
ing their own lives, and many of them dying at
their posts of chosen duty there are others whose
innate cowardice and selfishness are brought to
the surface by their fears, and who either turn
their backs upon the sufferers sit sullenly down
and refuse to bestr themselves for the aid of the
afflicted.
There is not feature of this sad visitation that
does not commend these afflicted people to the
sympathy of more fortunate communities. Cut off
they are now, even from their own interior
cities, by quarantine as remorseess as the dead
line of prison camp, they left to what slender
resources they can command, and isolated from
human contact, must fight their battle alone with
this horrible scourge. However courageous or
hopeful the majority of them may be, the odds are
fearful, and no stand such terrible con-
test long-Bdltimore American.