The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1905-08-23

| IS far North as Maine, and into this
cities of Canada.
In 1898 the city of Philadelphia.
then having q population of 10000,
was stricken, and 1900 persons-1(
per cent of the population-died.
-Four years later Philadelphia suf'
fered another visitation, with q death
loss of 1900, and in the year follow.
ing 3,845 deaths from the fever &C.
Cured.
In 1898 New York also was attacked
by the epidemic, 1850 persons dying,
while Boston gave 200 victims to the
disease in the same year. In 1907
Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Wilmington and Charleston suffered
extensively from the spread of the
fever along the coast, but since thai
time epidemics have been confined
more nearly to the Southern States.
New York, however, has been
immune.
In 1853 there was a widespread
epidemic, taking in Florida, Alabama,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas,
and Texas. In 1867 there was another
epidemic, more limited in area, but
particularly virulent in Galveston,
Texas, where the mortality reached
l, $50. Then occurred the great cpl
demic of 1873. In that year Memphis
furnished 1000 victims. New Orleans
proper lost only 225 from the disease.
but the neighboring town of Shreve-
port lost $50.
Then came the most terrible year of
all-1878-a year whose mention
causes a shudder throughout the land,
and whose numerals are synonymous
with death in the cities of New Orleans
and Memphis.
The fever invaded 132 towns in
Louisiana, Tennessee. Alabama,
Mississippi and Kentucky. There
were more than 1900 cases, and the
death roll reached the tremendous
total of Is, 934.
Thousands upon thousands of
citizens fled from Memphis and New
Orleans, but of the population that
remained in the former city = about
/ 9,6O0-or 10 per cent, sickened, and
5, $50 or more than Is per cent died.
In New Orleans the mortality was
about the same. It is estimated that
the loss to the country in q CONNER
cial way Al q direct result of the
epidemic vas above 900, 900, 900.
The epidemic of 1878 furnished
heroes whose names will live with
those who fell in the Civil War of q
decade and . half before. The North
not only sent thousands of dollars
and train loads of supplies to the
stricken cities-whole train loads of
collins, for s'send cofins'' was the CRY
from the South-but physicians,
nurses, ministers. priests and others
volunteered by the hundreds with
their services.
After fighting vallantly for weeks
the epidemic invaded the ranks of the
nurse and doctors and those who
came % the emissaries of God. In
Memphis seventeen resident physi-
clans and twenty-eight volunteers
from other cities sacrificed their lives.
Ten Roman Catholic priests, eleven
Sisters OF, Charity of the same church.
. halt score of ministers of Protestant
denominations, also were among the
volunteer workers who died in their
heroic work.
There has been no outbreak of the
fever since 1873 to excite widespread
alarm until this year. In 1893 there
. scare, 1,O76 cases prevailing at
Brunswick, Ca, but only 46 persons
died. In 1897 there was another scare,
% deaths occurring out of q total of
go cases.
Previous to the Spanish-American
War Havana had been the chief in
fected port from which yellow fever
penetrated to the States. Science and
the warfare on the stegomyia faciata,
following American occupation.
cleansed Havana Of the scourge. A
Panama victim Is believed to have
brought the fever to New Orleans and
started the present epidemic there.
In Reality.