San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-12-18
THE YELLOW FEVER.
PROFESSOR SWING, OF CHICAGO
PRESENTS HIS IDEAS ABOUT 1T.
The Union Of Vegetable Matter. Heat and
Moisture Which Creates Disease-The
Dangers of ''sun. Swamp and vegets-
tion"-A Possible Preventive.


Dangers of ''sun. Swamp and vegets-
tion"-A Possible Preventive.
Yellow fever, like candidate for the
presidency, becomes in each campaign the
victim Of lies No sooner had this form of
ailment appeared last August than the old
abuse began about yellow fever and dirt, yell
low fever and garbage in the back yard. If
the devil ought to have his due and no more,
snch form of justice should be applied to
the fatal disease Of our south. One writer
affirms that this disease originates in the
harbor at Havana, into which landlocked
pond the filth Of city has been discharged
for centuries From that harbor the disease
is carried over the gulf by travellers, and is
thus planted in our country just as the Can
ada thistle is imported by wind or car or
wagon; that this imported disease springs up
in some negligent family, and thus sets up
foreign business Of destruction.
The more evident truth is that there Is a
certain union of vegetable matter, heat and
moisture which creates disease The condi-
ton of the harbor at Havana will not ex.
plain the ague which used to shake once a
year every inhabitant Of Indiana and Hi
nois. There was little mill creek valley
near Cincinnati which YVES full of the shakes
every fall, and without the assistance Of
either Cuba or dirt In the southern part Of
Illinois many persons have died within TWEEN
ty-fow hours from an attack Of malarial
fever The fatality OF the Roman fever in
the summer months compelled all the rich
families to have summer homes on the
shores Of the Mediterranean. The exc
dus from Rome each summer was as great
as that from New Orleans or Mobile
This disease was not our yellow fever, but
it was almost as fatal and stands as evidence
that Cuba and the squalor Of few negroes
are not able to explain the occasional calam-
ity in our southern states. There are certain
low coasts Of Africa where the white man
cannot live q year The church attempted 70
satiate this coast fever by hinging mission
aries to the monster, but the coast fever was
victorious, and the more recent soldiers of
the cross have had to hurry from the ship up
to the table lands in order to live long
enough to convert single pagan The 18th
mus of Panama has in all its history been
graveyard for all unacclimated sojourners
The agent of death has been always fever,
hut not the yellow fever.
These facts, reaching in time over period
of 1900 years and reachiug in area from old
Rome to America and Africa, leave no room
to doubt that heat, moisture and luxuriant
vegetation generate a gas that is fatal to
human life. The rainfall in these districts
is very great; in Louisiana and Florida more
than fifty inches year, while in Illinois it is
but little more than half that amount The
heat Of course Is as much in excess as t.
average height and continuance That which
is a malarial fever and ague In Illinois be
comes intensified in Cuba or New Orleans
and sustains about the same relation Il
yellow fever that Chicago summer sustain
to the summer along the gulf. What is q
yellow fever in our south is modified into q
Roman fever In Italy Rome has crippled
her old enemy by draining her marshes
She has taken away the excess of water and
thus has taken from the sad disease its thiro
component part Cultivation of the ground
has relieved Illinois Of perhaps one-half Of
its standing water, and the ague has almost
abandoned the state
The feet that this disease follows the sun,
the water and the vegetation of certain par
allels and yet changes its form in differen
the difference between the Roman fever and
the yellow fever is caused by the difference
Of local vegetation. The sunshine and water
being always the same in chemical quality,
it is almost certain that the special reason of
yellow fever must be sought in the peculiar
fora Of our afflicted states The poppy, the
hemlock Tor coniuml and the wild parsnip
will, if eaten cause death, but not with the
L.
a sleep, another by acute pain Thus it is
the popularity Of the local fora that deter
mines the kind of fever that will invade the
home in the hot last weeks of summer
These facts being so evident it is foolish to
attribute the calamity at Jacksonville and
the death of Professor Proctor to the fact
that somebody had come over from Cuba
laden with the disease. To support this
theory of Cuban origin for the ailment,
some New York doctors deny that the popu-
lar astronomer died of the yellow fever. He
could not have died Of it because no one had
brought it to himl One fact is evident,
Professor Proctor is dead, and one other
fact stands, that he was killed by a combina-
ton of rain, sun and vegetation in Florida
What name the doctors will finally assign to
the ailment is not a matter of any signif-
canoe to anybody out of insane asylums
1t may aid cities and persons not little if
great regard is paid to sanitary laws. If ac-
climation prevents many from being stricken
with this plague, the inference is there are
hidden delicate powers which help repel the
poisonous air. Cleanliness has always been
mans friend against many forms of sickness.
But the mastery of this fever is not to be
found in such care of persons and streets.
The great causes must be touched, and the
ravages of malarial fever on the coasts of
Africa and in Panama assure US that these