The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-09-15

Traditional fear is long-lived. 1t sur
wives to throw communities into sense
less panics long after its cause has lost
its terror, after the substance has be-
come a shadow. This is especially true
of those diseases that have scourged
the world with their epidemics. The
Eruption of smallpox startles a COM
munity into panic now as it cid
generation or two ago, when fatal
termination followed an attack with al
most unvarying certainty. Diphtheria
still alarms the entire community where
it appears. These panics are but the
result of historic memories of times
when medical science was unable to
cope with the destroyers, and they run
in the blood of men and women as do
the old theological animosities bred in
days when persecution by bigOts was
universal. SO we have now promi-
nence given to the outbreak of yellow
fever in the South that is altogether
disproportionate to it's Importance and
a repetition of some of the scenes IA
miliar in it's earlier and more virulent
stages. We read of villages arming
their citizens to prevent the incoming
of persons from other localities; of the
fight Of thousands from the infected
regions, and of the refusal of towns TO
permit even the railway trains to stop.
But, if we would get point of con-
Inv iOI, o6Iy of
cine in the conquest Of this much dread
ed disease can be measured, we must
go back century and read the his
torian's narrative Of the epidemic and
its treatment McMaster has exhumed
from the papers of the time, from let
tiers and reports the condition prevail
ing in Philadelphia in 1893. Refugees
from the massacres of Toussaint HOu-
venture in San Domingo had arrived,
and simultaneously the yellow fever.
el vomito, Of it's Spanish breeding
grounds. A panic ensued. Thousands
who could fed to the country. The sick
were neglected and the dead left to fes-
ter in the August heat. Medical sci
ence of the day may be measured by
its remedies. The patient was bled at
once and repeatedly; five times in one
day, and in one recorded case seventy
two ounces of blood were taken from
patient. Fires were kept burning in
the streets to destroy the germs, out
this proving ineficacious the doctors
ordered them put out and gunpowdcr
burned instead Every one who could
buy gun fired it from morning to
night. But this was no better than the
fires, and the doctors ordered it stop
ped. All sorts of remedies were used
Nitre was burned, tobacco was esteem
ed as a preventive, garlic was recon-
mended, and the supply quickly ex-
hausted; mud baths we're tried, cam
phor followed, and every one went
about with a bag of it about his neck.
A favorite remedy was thieves vine
gar" an Importation from MarseiIIes.
as disinfectant, and il had a great
run
But it was, as usual, among the poor
and the wage earning classes that the
misery was the greatest They could
neither fee nor procure nursing aud
treatment. In desperation they took to
riotous living, an orgie Of death "Of-
ten as many as five dead bodies lay
fostering in a single house, which no
one could be induced to drag to the
nearest ditch and bury" pest house
was established by the seizure of a pri-
yate residence, but none but Iewd WON
en- could be had for nurses, and they
left the patients to the disease, while
they rioted On the contributed dainties.
The food CT the patients was scanty
and poorly prepared, their bodies were
never washed, nor the filth removed
from their rooms. Those who fled the
city Jared hardly. Stages were forbid
den to stop in the villages; a stage
coach was fired on in enc place; trav-
elers we're driven off; postmasters