Year: 1879

TO the Editor of The Comet


While many are turning their pens to


wards politics, currency and n new Consti-


tuition, permit me to occupy few lines
with conservative sermon upon yellow
fever. Many persons think our climate, as


well as our pecuniary and political situation
| is deteriorating. All that can leave prepare


to emigrate or 'refugee' every summer,


fearing all the horrors of an epidemic. As


there are many that can't get away, it is


worth while to inquire into the means of


mitigating what we cannot avoid. When


the doctors differ, laymen have an opportu-


nifty to come in and discuss epidemics with


the full assurance that they will be sustain


ed by some scientific physician. Some one


said he liked to see homeopathy advance


because he was satisfied it would lead to
the disuse of all nauseous drugs. No doubt


science and common sense are gradually


teaching that prevention is better than any


system of cure, that peculiar diseases must


run certain course, that diet, sleep, exer-


else, sunshine are the sure means of pros


noting health. Pure air is esteemed healthy


by all. The impurities that we read of as


miasma, malaria, fever germs, ETC., have
not been collected and analysed by any


chemist. Atmosphere surcharged with


carbonic acid gas are supposed to have in
them those causes of fever to which we
give vario high sounding names. At any


rate swamps, fiat clay lands upon which
water has been standing, excavations, new
bitches, grading of streets are all accused
of propagating fevers stagnant water is
sometimes accused in the same way, but the
mischief does not appear until the matter
has evaporated to large extent and expos
ed to the sun more or less damp earth. 1t
seems necessary for the propagation of
fever that the thermometer should rise to a
certain degree-a degree to which it seldom
rises if the ground is damp and the air sur
charged with moisture. Water absorbs the
carbonic acid gas, and prevents its rising
into the air. would not pretend to say
that carbonic acd gas is the cause of fever.
In wells, cellars, ships holds, the black
hole of Calcutta, it is supposed to have pro-
duced stupor, disease and death. Ship
fever, and various forms of typhus are
thought TO result from the stupor produced |
by want of ventilation, and by breathing |
an atmosphere loaded with the exhalations |
of the human body. Now, one of the i'm
purities in all such cases is carbonic acid |
gas. Hence would infer that if we could |
find an atmosphere above this gas, and a
below the ono in which yellow
fever propagates, we might feel safe while
nursing our sick friends.


There are times and places in which per-
sons may sicken and die of yellow fever
without initiating an epidemic. Are not
those times and places when and whore the
is below that necessary for
sprouting yellow fever seed and the air free
from noxious vapors9 Persons have fre-
quently died of yellow fever in the piney
woods without engendering the disease
in any other person. Ordinarily the yellow
fever has not arrived at Memphis until
about frost, and the temperature would
prevent an epidemic. The drouth of sums
mer would be over and the noxious vapors
would be absorbed by the water of the fall
rains. South of Memphis the drouth is
apt to continue longer, the earth become
hotter in the fall months, and the frost
md fall rains come so late that the fever
epidemic.


Some experiments show that at certain
attitudes the temperature is always much
cooler than at the surface Of the earth. This