Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1880-01-16
Peculiarities of 'eYelIow Jacl." +"

Since the beginning of the
eighteenth century seamen have had
occasion to notice that sometimes,
after visit to certain ports in the
West Indies or in Central OF South
America, a mysterious something
has entered their ships-a something
which may in few days turn the
vessel into a floating pest-hOuse, or
which may show no sign of its pres
sence for days or weeks, and yet at
the end of the voyage 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, impalpable entity pre-
senting so many peculiarities in its
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 expe-
rience of its vagaries often speak of
them, and of Yellow Jack, in much
the same terms as they would speak
of a highly dlsreputable but very in
teresting acquaintance sort of
Bohemian among diseases. It's
course in a city has been compared
to that of tax collector passing
from house to house along a street,
often only one side of street. 1t is
usually stopped by prison or con-
vent walls, sometimes affecting but
a few squares, and again developing
in week into one of the most terri
bic epidemics.
We have 10 reliable information
as to the origin of yellow fever in
time or space. The majority of spe-
cifc, contagious, or infectious dis
eases-such as plague, smallpox,
measles, scarlatina, cholera, etc.
can be traced with more or less pre-
clsion to Asia as starting point;
but Yellow Jack has no such histo-
ry. His presence is first distinctly
recognized in the West Indies about
1890, prior to which date there Is no
satisfactory evidence of the exist
ence in these islands of a pestilence
presenting It's peculiar symptoms,
and harmless to the natives while
fatal to the unacclimated.
1t is the inter-tropical Atlantic
pestilence, just as cholera is that of
India, or.the plague that of Egypt
and MesOpotamia. 1t is a specific
disease due to specific cause-a
cause which can be packed away in
a closet or bureau, and be preserved
for months; or which may be car
ried in a ship, or in a trunk of cloth,
ing for hundreds of miles, retaining
It's specific powers. Many of It's phe-
nomena can at present only be ex-
planned 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 a minute organ
ism, somewhat like the yeast-plant;
or 1t may be the product of such an
organism, Ike alcohol. Either OF
these may be comprehended under
what is known as the germ-theory.
If the cause is an organism which it.
self enters the human body and null
tiplies 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 di-
rectly to another person. 1t is pre-
sumed that it usually enters the
body through the respiratory pro-
cess, and period of from one to ten
days elapses before the characteristic
phenomena of the disease appear.
This is known as the period of incu-
baton. The cause of the disease
has a self-limited period of existence
and this period is comparatively
short if it is freely exposed to the
external air. In the West India
Islands the disease disappears at var
ious ports for many years, and only
reappcars on fresh reimportation
of the cause.-Dr. John s. Billings
an the International Reyieao, for