The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-09-04
YELLOW FEVER FACTS.
THE SCOURGE CANNOT BE DRIVEN
AWAY BY noise.

trSVentlVo measures useless Boards
of Health-Progress and Cure of the
Disease.
From the Ne,o York World.
HENDERSON, N. Y, Aug. 81 am glad
to see that the fussy and somewhat incom-
petent health officers of Jacksonville, Fla,
have finally abandoned the conclusion
theory" and the idea that the burning of
tar barrels frightens the germs OF yellow
fever. To Danish the scourge by the firing
of cannon has been tried in small towns of
the south again and again, with the sole
result that those persons already Ill were
killed by the shock to their exhausted
nerves and that the number of new cases
was promptly and materially increased.
That any doctor, however feeble of intel
lect, should counsel the banging of artillery
in town stricken with pestilence is almost
Incredible, but that a "board OF healthn
should direct it is as marvellous an exhibit
ton of drooling idiocy as can be furnished.
The beating of tomtoms in the sick room as
practiced by the sagacious medicine men
among the Indians, is quite as effective and
has the further advantage of being moro
frugal.
The burning of tar and pitch as means
of public fumigation is another fine stroke
of paralytic science. ANY doctor who, dur
ing his long years of practice, had casually
read, out of mere curiosity, any brief
treatise on the semiology of zymotic dis
eases, would come to the conclusion that
germs which can live underground, which
can enjoy dwelling in bilge water and make
life revel in an old hair trunk full of
refuse clothing, are not to be disheartened
Ill h.,
respirable by human beings. OF course the
exasperating and irritant stencil of these
bonfires affiicts the sick with bronchitis in
addition to yellow fever, suffocates the
nurses and paves the way for a fresh platoon
of victims, but the march of the disease will
be found to be rather encouraged than
otherwise.
! was in New Orleans during the devas-
tating epidemic of 1878, which wrought
such horrible havoc not only to that city,
but in Memphis, Grenada, Holly Springs
and number of other towns. Nowhere in
the world is yellow fever so well understood
and SO scientifically handled as in New Or
leans. There was proof of this in the fact
that the death rate during the year was
scarcely IL per cent of the cases, while at
Memphis it was at least so per cent, and in
Grenada 70 or 80. When it was known
that the disease had obtained q foothold and
that the conditions were favorable to its
spreads the board of health bravely came
out with public announcement that yellow
fever was epidemic in the city, and the rail-
roads made preparations for the outward
rush of the frightened For week the
stampede kept the town in an uproar, and
then New Orleans settled down into grim
silence, closed her shops, stilled her church
bells, reorganized the benevolent Howard
association to help the needy, and without
fuss or fret closed in combat with her in
visible foe
Or. Chopin, one Of the most eminent
surgeons of modern times was president of
the state board of health that year. He
was theorist and had pinned his faith to
carbolic acid as disinfectant. He pro-
ceeded to deluge the'street surrounding the
foci of infection with that loud-smelling
product, poured from the public watering
carts, but without avail. Indeed, the car
bolized neighborhoods seemed to burn
faster in the furious fire of the fever than
before, and he abandoned it, Scientific as
he was in surgery, be did not know
that carbolic "acid" is not an acid at
all. but an alcohol; that it is only feebly
antiseptic, and that as q germ-de-
strOyer it Is so impotent that 40 per cent.
admixture is required to even check the
fermentation of yeast. Had it been possible
to use corrosive sublimate. or, still better,
the protiodide of mercury, or even the cheap
sulphates of iron or copper, all germicides
of high power-in such liberal quantity,
the result might have been better, but it is
safe to assume that the thorough disinfec-
ton of a city is practical impossibility,
and that the only thing which can be done
is to sweep it clean of garbage and other
putrescent matters to lessen the typhoidal
and malarial poisons which, when compli-
Gated with yellow fever, increase its powers
twofold.
''sTAMPING-oUT' PROCESS
Now as to the question of stamping out. I"
Whenever disease begins spreading in a
city there is always a loud medical howl
about stamping out. The stamping out
process, however. seems generally to get a
screw loose and postpone working as long
as does Keely's wonderful motor. Small
pox, measles. scarlet fever, or any other of
the major exanthemeta, may be stamped
out by vigilance, fumigation, the isolation
OF patients and the prompt destruction by
fire o. all bedding and other fomites
exposed to the infection, but in the
case of cholera, yellow fever, bilious remit
tent, dengue or other of the great zymotics
the case is different ContagIon is the
means Of spread with the former-that is,
the germs are engendered within the human
body and are communicated by contact.
Tho latter diseases are spread by infection
that is, the source of the poison is the soil,
the air, drinking water or other externals.
IL ls Inucu 10 Dc uOuuUou III yellOW lever Is
contagious at ALL Bring a patient to
hospital in New York, burn his
clothing aud baggage. and he will be
found to be as harmless as a sufferer
from gunshot wound to his physician and
attendants. That which poisoned him is an
external. the germs of which can only be
sown in an atmosphere and in soil pos
sessing the still unknown conditions favor
able to their increase, Extrome humidity
and long -continued heat are regarded in
New Orleans as concomitants essential to
yellow fever. but the epidemic which raw
aged Mobile fifteen o. sixteen years ago
struck that town after the first frost and
became pernicious partisan of death with
fearful activity.
HOW THE GERMS ARE SPREAD.
Clothing, cotton bales, rags of all de-
scriptions, are favorite fomites or conveyors
of yellow fever. The epidemic Of 1878 in
Memphis was traced to q trunk containing
the effects of q sailor WHO had died WITH
suspicious symptoms in New Orleans. His
widow in Memphis got the trunk,
opened it, let the germs loose on copgenial
soil, was stricken herself, aud thus the
plague entered, although the town had de-
clared shotgun quarantine against New
Orleans, and was at that very time refusing
To receive even the mails from that city.
Yellow fever is a disease indigenous to
tho semi-tropics. It fHds. perpetual home
in the Antilles Havana Vera Cruz and