Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-08-15
The sccuReg CT ras sourH

THE sccuRGs CT tbs SOUTH,
In a portion Of the South OF the Union !
the dreaded yellow fever is epidemic
The announcement of its appearance upon
the Mexican border was shock to the whole
country. There was every reason to ex.
pect that this summer we would escape
visitation by this pest. In the order of
the calculation for its recurrence, this was
not a year in which it should make its ap-
pearance. Here and there few cases of
the disease have been reported every sum.
mer, but it does not in each year become SO
prevalent as to create alarm.
Throughout the length and breadth of
the land the news Of the fever in the South
was received with the profoundest feelings
OF sorrow. Every expression regarding
the afflicted was one OF sympathy and
touching tenderness. We are sympa.
.hetic people; the bonds that unite US and
make US one nation are strongly knit with
fraternal regard. Say what it may of the
almost reckless whirl Of excitement in
which we live, the world must Judge US as
a pitying people, whose heroic ready and
lavish aid to our afflicted, time and time
agair, has never had an equal in any other
land. Our citizens are praying all over the
land to-day-fer the hearts desire lisa prayer
that the pestilence may not pass beyond
the comparatively narrow limits to which
it is now confined in Texas. Yet it seems
almost too much to expect, as in no past
year has it, when manifestipg itself as now,
confined its work to a single locality or Sec
tion of the South. New Orleans has for
four years successfully excluded this
Bronze John, as it is called, and has, in
common with Memphis, Vicksburg and
other Southern cities, made such sanitary
advances and defenses that we may in.
dulge in the belief, if it appears in those
cities during the two remaining hot months,
it will be less virulent than formerly, and
more easily stamped out.
In 1853, 1858, 1867 and 1878 New Or.
leans, which has now a new and closer
relation to the people of this coast, was
scourged to the quick by this pestilence,
and it would seem as if it had been so
smitten by the hand of fate that mercy
might now well interpose to prevent re.
ne1ed infection. Medical science has
made advances nearly equal to the most
progressive of the sciences, but it seems to
have been baked completely by Yellow
Jack. Before him it still stands abashed
and comparatively helpless. Perhaps this
is due to the fact that the dreaded disease
has undergone changes. There was time,
says the Dallas Herald, when to be among
the pineries was considered sure ex.
emption before the war of the REBEL.
ion it seldom, if ever, attacked the
negro, and few years ago it chung only to
the coast, or along large water courses.
But now, we are tod, negroes are attacked
by it, it prevails in interior sections, and
even the resinous atmosphere of the pine
forests have borne the germs OF the disease.
Formerly it was the ally of filth and I'm.
cleanness, and spent it's force where clean.
illness was the exception but in later years
it dwelt chiefly in mansions where scrupu-
lous regard was paid to every sanitary pre-
caution. The truth seems to be confessed
that the physicians are ignorant of its
origin and the means by which it is dis.
ssminated. Certain it is that they differ
greatly regarding it, and they are not even
agreed as to whether it is contagious, or
whether to it the germ theory applies,
although it strongly resembles malarial
affections in its symptoms, 30 much
SO, that in their early stages, ma.
larial and yellow fevers are liable to be
mistaken one for the other. Yet it is
stated that microscopic science and medi-
cal investigation have discovered that in
blood charged with malarial poison para
site organisms, transparent and spherical,
have been detected, and the cause of the
disease thus disclosed.
The Texas journal at hand which seems
to be best informed as to the yellow fever
in that State, the Herald, does not
express any hope, born of belief, that the
fever will be speedily driven out. In that
State of great distances, spare population
and broad areas, we should expect to see
the fever easily confined. and to that hone
now clings. Should it, however, pass
beyond into more thickly settled regions,
we may expect to see it sweep over the
South country of the lower Mississippi
much as it did in the years already named.
In the meantime there will be entertained
the hope that possibly medical science
may, in this new visitation, at last hit
upon the means of throttling the monster
and depriving it of power, as vaccination
has done in the case OF smallpox.