Year: 1873

The following pen-picture of the effects
OF the terrible pestilence is furnished by
Dr. L. H. Cohen to the Quincy Wing:
Perhaps no more appalling sight can be
| imagined than the malignant type of yell
| low-fever-that which is now raging in
those stricken cities; even in its milder
forms it is bad enough. Not infrequently
the doomed victim is apparently but
! slightly attacked may be seen sitting up
in his bed, reading perhaps, and to all ap-
pearance but little indisposed; yet in such
a case, at his very next visit, the physician
may find but lifeless corpse, gone from
| this world without struggle. The dis
ease is so fearfully insidious, that no one
can foretell how fhe primary attack may
| result, and the seeds of the malady may
lurk in the veins for days unnoticed, like
smoldering spark until the flames
burst forth with rage that knows no con-
queror.


Such instances as those described, al
most without any symptoms are compare
lively rare. Usually all cases are attended
with intense and agonizing pain. The
dreadful headache and backache with
which the attack is ushered in cannot be
compared with aught else in the domain
of human suffering; while the flushed
face and brilliant injected eyes sometimes
tearfully beautiful in their strange bright
ness, must be anxiously watched, for not
the most consummate skill or longest eX-
perience may prophesy the time when
these shall give place to the CHASTITY, livid
lip, and the jaundiced skin and yellow
eyeballs from which this malady derives
its name. Or perhaps the dreaded second
stage, hemorrhage, appears, heralded by
the frightful vomito or black vomit-nay,
perhaps, attended with bleeding from
every pore of the body. Then comes the
horrible delirium, when the patient, per-
haps refined, delicate woman, or a ten
der child, but now raving maniac, pos
sessed of the strength of five infuriated
men, taxes to the utmost, sometimes for
hours, all and more than all the resources
of the worn and exhausted friends at the
bedside, until at last death closes the
dreadful scene. These are no fanciful
pictures; they are realities, that have been
Witnessed time and again, and are occur
ring by scores in these plague-stricken
cities Of Memphis and Shreveport.


When recovery takes place-and thanks
to the progress OF science and dictates of
reason and common sense recoveries do
occur in far greater number than in SINH
lar epidemics of by-gone years-the poor
patient is left as weak and helpless as q
newborn infant; if he attempts to leave





fainting to the floor, and such a fainting
fit is usually but the forerunner of death.


For days and weeks he must be closely
watched, and guarded against any inn
prudence, for he has in great measure lost
tor time the power of control over him
self, and his Judgment, and the slightest
act of incaution may bring on the ever
to-be-dreaded relapse, more dangerous by
far than the original seizure.


A slight idea of the expense incurred
in case of yellow fever may be simply
imagined. A nurse-far more important
even than a physician, must be in attend
ance night and day, for woe to the yellow
fever patient who is left alone for a single
moment. The stretching forth of the
hand for glass of water ON the table
near the bedside may in a second work
the irreparable mischief.


While so carefully attended every
change and movement must be jealously
noted. The strength may fail, and the
mechanism of the overwrought system
suddenly run down like a worn-out
clock.


1t is the physicians duty to do all in
his power to guard against such acci-
dents, and whatever he may order-the
rarest conserves, the most expensive
wines--must be furnished without delay,
for every minute is fraught with danger,
and with every second the subtle poison
in the blood is doing its awful work and
hurrying on the wing of the Death
Angel.