Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-08-06
A MEMPHIS DOCTOR ABROAD.
Dr.. Lask interviewed in Louisville.
The Only Escape from Fever Is to
Burn the Town.

Under the head Of "A Memphis Doc
tors Talk About the Fever" the Louis
vile Commercial prints a long article, as
having been drawn out Of DIR. Laski, who
says he has been a medical practitioner
here for the past twenty years. Among
other things the doctor says Memphis is
naturally a healthy place, and would
never have been desolated by epidemics
had she been kept in decent sanitary
condition. If we had always had the
present legislative council, DR.. Porter,
president, with the money the city used
to have, there would never have been any
trouble. 1t is a pity the present govern
ment of Memphis has no funds with
which to do anything of consequence.
THE CELLARS
are filthy beyond belief, that is, a majori-
ty of them. You must know to apprcci-
ate their condition that in Memphis in
many parts of the town the privy vaults
are in the cellars, The odor, the poison
and the yellow fever germs, in case there
was yellow fover last year in the houses,
come up from them into all the rooms of
the houses where people live and sleep.
This year they were not sufficiently clean
cd. They contained most of tho filth and
excretions from the yellow fever patients
last year and instead of being filed with
earth and closed up they were merely
''disinfected, which was of no avail what
ever. Besides this the cellars were other
wise filthy.
II DRINKING WATER
comes from Wolf river, andI do not deem
it to be healthy except when thoroughly
filtered, which is never done except by
well-to-do or wealthy people. 1t will
stain the glasses in which it is placed
The river runs through a clay country,
but it is rolling and nowhere swampy.
THE YELLOW FEVER
Is now local and not exotic. In e for
mer to 1867, 1873, 1878 and 1879 the fever
that came into the city from below never
spread. The reason it spread in 1867 was
because the conditions were there for il.
Before that year, hogs, goats, cows and
other scayenger animals were allowed to
run free, and they kept things clean. Be-
sides, then holes in the streets were kept
filled with sand and gravel, and the filth
in them, if any, was covered up. But in
that year the scayengers were excluded,
and the streets everywhere in the city
were dug up for the laying of Nicolson
pavement in the high tide of summer
heat. In 1873 the Nicolson was rotten,
and it was taken up in the heat of sum-
mer. So in 1878. This year the tearing
up was started again, but / protested in
the Appeal, the paper took up the subject
and it was stopped. Louisville had better
not allow her Main street Nicolson to be
removed.
Besides the causes for this years out
break l have already mentioned there is
another, perhaps the most important of
all. ] refer to the keeping of apparel.
bed clothes, mattresses, etc, that we're
used by yellow fever patients. These
should have all been destroyed to the last
rag. Instead many housekeepers have
them stored away or in use, and junk
shops, secondhand stores, etc, have been
full Of them ever since last winter, when
the fever was frozen out temporarily. /
have seen a pile of mattresses in second
hand stores stained with black vomit. |
told the board of health of these facts. but
it failed to act.
THERE If NO HOP
for the yellew fever todie out before frost
1t will continue until winter, but as there
are not many people left and not many
Northern doctors going in, it will not be so
fatal as last year. Themistake of the How
ard Association last.year, in putting North
ern physicians into active practice at once
on yellow fever, was fatal to many people,
and to many of the doctors themselves,
A of them dying as against IA of the To-
cal force.
BURN 1T OUT.
l nanswerto how can Memphis be saved
from return of the fever inthe future, the
doctor said; l know of no way, unless it
be to burn the town down, yellow fever