The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1888-09-27
PRICE B CENTS
THE YELLOW FEVER.
Incidents Of the Dreadful Epidemic
That Swept Over the South I'm 1871.

Incidents Of the Dreadful Epidemic
That Swept Over the South in 1871.
"Hello, Doctor! You see I was
right. Why, bless your soul, I've
got no more yellow fever than you
have this minute. I never felt bet
ter in my life. All want is a good
square meal, and I am ready for
work again."
The speakers face was flushed and
his blood-shot eyes rolled about as
if they were set in liquid fire. He
sat in an easy chair, having just left
his bed.
The yellow death had seized an
other victim.
DIR. Igleheart, who had been en-
ployed by the Can't Getaway Club
of Mobile, an organization whose
members were pledged not to leave
the city during the epidemic, said to
the sick man:
Il told you not to leave your bed;
you have done very wrong"
I was accompanying the doctor in
his rounds, and once out in the streets
he said to me:
"You can order a coffin for that
poor fellow in there. He will be
dead before morning"
And he was.
Modification had set in and the
dying man having no aches and
pains imagined he was well.
~
The plague had far advanced.
Every human being who could
leave the city had gone as far away
as their money would take them.
Those were dark days in the Gulf
City in 1871.
The streets all deserted. Every
store except the apothecary shops
is closed, and the drug clerks are
heavy eyed and weary with unceas-
ing work. Your own footballs echo
unpleasantly as they strike the stone
pavement. Now and then you see
a negro skulkingly bent on robbery
and plunder.
A funeral procession passes rap
idly-a hearse and one carriage.
There is no time for a long slow
moving funeral train.
Then another and another passes.
Up and down the cross streets
you look and see hearse or moth
A cart rattles noisily over the
street. A white canvass cloth covers
the contents.
There's human arm stretched
out from under The cloth.
/ 1t is loaded with victims of the
plague. There are too many dead
to give coffins and hearses to all,
and there are too many dying who
need the attention of the living.
~
In 1871 the first case of yellow
fever was brought from New Orleans
to Atlanta on an excursion. 1t
spread rapidly and in few weeks
panic came. Directly opposite where
I lived family resided, consisting
of gentleman, his wife and four
} children. They had packed up and
were ready to leave on a steamer
going up the Alabama river. Four
f hours before the boat was to leave
one of the children was taken sick
: and died in thirty-six hours. Next
| day two more of the children became
3 very ill and died. Then the moth
! er and the other child fell victims
' to the plague. The grief-stricken
: husband and father, frantic and des-
e perate attempted to drown his sor-
row in the wine cup, and was HIM
r self taken with the fever and died.
$ A whole bright and happy fami-
lily was swept from earth in ten
days.
s During the epidemic of 1871 sew
: eral families in Mobile rented large
/. house few miles from the city and
q established sort of colony. Al
t that time quinine was thought to be
n an antidote to the fever, and this
: household, which consisted of some
n thirty people, used to gather in
t room every morning and measure
out five grain doses and swallow il
e one by one.
n "Come up and get your quinine,
g the old lady who had charge of the
s bottle used to cry out and each one
t would step up and take dose as il
g it was the most solemn duty they
] ever performed. Not a member OF
e the household dared refuse.