Litchfield enquirer., 1880-01-08
Peculiarities of Yellow Jack. :.

Since the beginning of the eighteenth cen turv, seamen have had occasion to notice that | sometimes, after visit to certain ports in the West Indies or in Central or South America, a mysterious something has entered their shlps,-a something which may in few days turn the vessel into floating pest-house, or which may show no signs of it's presence for days or weeks, and yet at the end of the voy- age may promptly destroy a stranger entering the hold; which might attack all the sailors sleeping on one side of the ship and leave the rest unharmed, ,-in short an invisible impal- paole entity presenting so many pecullarities ln It's results that it was the most natural thing in the world to imagine it as being endowed with the attributes of purpose and will, and to speak of it as Bronze John" or "Yellow Jack"
 This tendency to personify yellow fever IS strong among all who are familiar with it, and physicians and nurses who have had much ex- perlence of it's vagaries often speak of them, and of Yellow Jack, in much the same terms as they would speak of highly disrepntabe but very interesting acquaintance, sort of Bohemian among diseases. Its course in city has been compared to that of a' tax colec- tor passing from house to house along a street, often only one side of a street. It is usually stopped by prison or convent walls, sometimes affecting but few squares and again devel-
 
 of epidemics.
 We have no reliable information as to the origin of yellow fever in time or space. The majority of specific, contagious, or infectious dlseases-such as plague, smallpox, measles, scarlatlna, cholera, etc.-can be traced with more or less precision to Asia as a starting point; but Yellow Jack has no such history. His presence is first distinctly recognized in the West Indies about 169O prior to which date there is no satisfactory. evidence of the existence iu these islands of a pestilence pre- senting it's peculiar symptoms, and harmless to the natives while fatal to the unacclimated
 It is the inter-tropical Atlantic pestilence. just as cholera is that of India, or the plague that of Egypt and Mesopotamia. It is a spe- clhc disease due to specific cause,-a cause which can be packed away in a closet or bu- reau, can be preserved for months: or which may be carried in ship, or in trunk of clothing for hundreds of miles, retaining it's specific powers. Many of it's phenomena can atlpresent only be explained on the assumption that this cause is either itself capable of growth and reproduction outside the bodies of the sick or that it is the product of something which has these qualities, In other words, the cause may be minute organism, somewhat like the yeast-plant ; or 1t my be the product of such an organism, like alcohol. Either of these may be comprehended under what is known as the germ.theory. If the cause is an organism which itself enters the human body and multiplies there, it must exist in more than one form; and in the form in which it usually exists in the human body it is not capable of passing directly to another person. It is presumed that it usually enters the body through the respiratory process, and period of from one to ten days elapses be- fore the characteristic phenomena of the dis ease appear. This is known as the period of incubation. The cause of the disease has a self limited peron of existence, and this peri cd is comparatively short if it is freely exposed to the external air. In the West India Islands the disease disappears at various ports for many years, and only reappears on a fresh re- importation of the cause.-Dr. John s. BHI- inys Oaa the Yellow FeUer in the TaternGtionaL ReUieao tor January, 1880.