Chapter II: Part 2

7. The _typhus_ state of fever is generally preceded by all those circumstances which debilitate the system, both by the action and abstraction of stimuli. It is known by a weak and frequent pulse, a disposition to sleep, a torpor of the alimentary canal, tremors of the hands, a dry tongue, and, in some instances, by a diarrh[oe]a. These symptoms occur most frequently in what is called the jail, the ship, and the hospital fever. I heard of it in a few cases in the yellow fever of 1793, and all writers take notice of cases of the plague, which run on into a slow fever that continues 30 or 40 days. I have seen it succeed the common bilious fever, pleurisy, and influenza. It has been confounded with the malignant state of fever, or what is called the typhus gravior; but it differs widely from it in being accompanied by a feeble excitement in the blood-vessels, from a feeble stimulus, and by the usual signs of debility from abstraction in every other part of the body.

From the accession of new stimuli, or an increase in the force of former ones, this typhus state of fever sometimes assumes, on the 11th, 14th, and even 20th days, the symptoms of the synocha state of fever. It will be useful to remember this remark, not only because it establishes the unity of fever, but because it will justify the use of a remedy, seldom prescribed after the disease has acquired that name which associates it with stimulating medicines.

The common name of this state of fever, is the _nervous_ fever. This name is improper; for it invades the nervous system by pain, delirium, and convulsions much less than several other states of fever. To prevent the absurd and often fatal association of ideas upon the treatment of this state of fever, I have called it, from its duration, the _low chronic_ state of fever. I have adopted the term _low_, from Dr. Butter's account of the remitting fever of children, in order to distinguish it from states of fever to be mentioned hereafter, in which the patient is not confined to his bed. This new name of the typhus or nervous fever establishes its analogy with several other diseases. We have the acute and the chronic rheumatism; the acute and chronic pneumony, commonly called the pleurisy and pulmonary consumption; the acute and chronic inflammation of the brain, known unfortunately by the unrelated names of phrenitis, madness, and internal dropsy of the brain. Why should we hesitate, in like manner, in admitting acute and chronic fever, in all those cases where no local inflammation attends?

8. The _typhoid_ state of fever is composed of the synocha and low chronic states of fever. It is the _slow_ nervous fever of Dr. Butter. The excitement of the blood-vessels is somewhat greater than in the _low_ chronic state of fever. Perhaps the muscular fibres of the blood-vessels, in this state of fever, are affected by different degrees of stimulus and excitement. Supposing a pulse to consist of eight cords, I think I have frequently felt more or less of them tense or relaxed, according as the fever partook more or less of the synocha, or low chronic states of fever. This state of fever occurs most frequently in what are called the hectic and puerperal fevers, and in the scarlatina.

9. The _hectic_ state of fever differs from all the other states of fever, by the want of regularity in its paroxysms, in which chills, fevers, and sweats are included; and by the brain, nerves, muscles, and alimentary canal being but little impaired in their functions by it. It appears to be an exclusive disease of the blood-vessels. It occurs in the pulmonary consumption, in some cases of lues, of scrophula, and of the gout, and after most of the states of fever which have been described. The force of the pulse is various, being occasionally synochoid, typhoid, and typhus.

10. Intermissions, or the _intermitting_ and remitting states of fever, are common to all the states of fever which have been mentioned. But they occur most distinctly and universally in those which partake of the bilious diathesis. They have been ascribed to the reproduction of bile, to the recurrence of debility, and to the influence of the heavenly bodies upon the system. None of these hypotheses has explained the recurrence of fever, where the bile has not been in fault, where debility is uniform, and where the paroxysms of fever do not accord with the revolutions of any part of the solar system. I have endeavoured to account for the recurrence of the paroxysm of fever, in common with all other periodical diseases, by means of a natural or adventitious association of motions. Dr. Percival has glanced at this law of animal matter; and Dr. Darwin has explained by it, in the most ingenious manner, many natural and morbid actions in the human body.

11. There is a state of fever in which the morbid action of the blood-vessels is so feeble as scarcely to be perceptible. Like the hectic state of fever, it seldom affects the brain, nerves, muscles, or alimentary canal. It is known in the southern states of America by the name of _inward_ fevers. The English physicians formerly described it by the name of febricula.

These eleven states of fever may be considered as _primary_ in their nature. All the states which remain to be enumerated belong to some one of them, or they are compounds of two, three, or more of them. Even these primary states of fever seldom appear in the simple form in which they have been described. They often blend their symptoms; and sometimes all the states appear at different times in the course of a fever. This departure from a uniformity in the character of fevers must be sought for in the changes of the weather, in the casual application of fresh irritants, or in the operation of the remedies which have been employed to cure them.

To the first class of the states of fever belong the sweating, the fainting, the burning, and the cold and chilly states of fever.

12. The _sweating_ state of fever occurs in the plague, in the yellow fever, in the small-pox, the pleurisy, the rheumatism, and in the hectic and intermitting states of fever. Profuse sweats appeared every other day in the autumnal fever of 1795 in Philadelphia, without any other symptom of an intermittent. The English sweating sickness was nothing but a symptom of the plague. The sweats in all these cases are the effects of morbid and excessive action, concentrated in the capillary vessels.

13. The _fainting_ state of fever accompanies the plague, the yellow fever, the small-pox, and some states of pleurisy. It is the effect of great depression; hence it occurs most frequently in the beginning of those states of fever.

14. The _burning_ state of fever has given rise to what has been called a species of fever. It is the causus of authors. Dr. Mosely, who rejects the epithet of yellow, when applied to the bilious fever, because it is only one of its accidental symptoms, very improperly distinguishes the same fever by another symptom, viz. the burning heat of the skin, and which is not more universal than the yellowness which attends it.

15. The _cold_ and _chilly_ state of fever differs from a common chilly fit, by continuing four or five days, and to such a degree, that the patient frequently cannot bear his arms out of the bed. The coldness is most obstinate in the hands and feet. A _coolness_ only of the skin attends in some cases, which is frequently mistaken for an absence of fever.

Having mentioned those states of fever which affect the arterial system without any, or with but little local disease, I proceed next to enumerate those states of fever which belong to the

II. Class of the order that was mentioned, in which there are local affections combined with general fever. They are,

16. The _intestinal_ state of fever. I have been anticipated in giving this epithet to fever, by Dr. Balfour[9]. It includes the cholera morbus, diarrh[oe]a, dysentery, and colic. The remitting bilious fever appears, in all the above forms, in the summer months. They all belong to the febris introversa of Dr. Sydenham. The jail fever appears likewise frequently in the form of diarrh[oe]a and dysentery. The dysentery is the offspring of marsh and human miasmata, but it is often induced in a weak state of the bowels, by other exciting causes. The colic occasionally occurs with states of fever to be mentioned hereafter.

[9] Account of the Intestinal Remitting Fever of Bengal.

17. The _pulmonary_ state of fever includes the true and bastard pneumony in their acute forms; also catarrh from cold and influenza, and the chronic form of pneumony in what is called pulmonary consumption.

18. The _eruptive_ state of fever includes the small-pox, measles, erysipelas, miliary fever, chicken-pox, and pemphigus.

19. The _anginose_ state of fever includes all those affections of the throat which are known by the names of cynanche inflammatoria, tonsillaris, parotidea, maligna, scarlatina, and trachealis. The cynanche trachealis is a febrile disease. The membrane which produces suffocation and death in the wind-pipe is the effect of inflammation. It is said to be formed, like other membranes which succeed inflammation, from the coagulable lymph of the blood.

20. The _rheumatic_ state of fever is confined chiefly to the labouring part of mankind. The topical affection is seated most commonly in the joints and muscles, which, from being exercised more than other parts of the body, become more debilitated, and are, in consequence thereof, excited into morbid and inflammatory action.

21. The _arthritic_ or _gouty_ state of fever differs from the rheumatic, in affecting, with the joints and muscles, all the nervous and lymphatic systems, the viscera, and the skin. Its predisposing, exciting, and proximate causes are the same as the rheumatic and other states of fever. It bears the same ratio to rheumatism, which the yellow fever bears to the common bilious fever. It is a fever of more force than rheumatism.

22. The _cephalic_, in which are included the phrenitic, lethargic, apoplectic, paralytic, hydrocephalic, and maniacal states of fever. That madness is originally a state of fever, I infer, 1. From its causes, many of which are the same as those which induce all the other states of fever. 2. From its symptoms, particularly a full, tense, quick, and sometimes a slow pulse. 3. From the inflammatory appearances of the blood which has been drawn to relieve it. And, 4. From the phenomena exhibited by dissection in the brains of maniacs, being the same as are exhibited by other inflamed viscera after death. These are, effusions of water or blood, abscesses, and schirrus. The hardness in the brains of maniacs, taken notice of by several authors, is nothing but a schirrus (sui generis), induced by the neglect of sufficient evacuations in this state of fever. The reader will perceive by these observations, that I reject madness from its supposed primary seat in the mind or nerves. It is as much an original disease of the blood-vessels, as any other state of fever. It is to phrenitis, what pulmonary consumption is to pneumony. The derangement in the operations of the mind is the effect only of a chronic inflammation of the brain, existing without an abstraction of muscular excitement.

23. The _nephritic_ state of fever is often induced by calculi, but it frequently occurs in the gout, small-pox, and malignant states of fever. There is such an engorgement, or choaking of the vessels of the kidneys, that the secretion of the urine is sometimes totally obstructed, so that the bladder yields no water to the catheter. It is generally accompanied with a full or tense pulse, great pain, sickness, or vomiting, high coloured urine, and a pain along the thigh and leg, with occasionally a retraction of one of the testicles. It exists sometimes without any pain. Of this I met with several instances in the yellow fever of 1793. I include diabetes in this state of fever.

24. The _hydropic_ state of fever, in which are included collections of water, in the lungs, cavity of the thorax, cavity of the abdomen, ovaria, scrotum, testicles, and lower extremities, and usually preceded, and generally accompanied with morbid action in the blood-vessels. That dropsy is a state of fever, I have endeavoured to prove in another place[10]. Nineteen dropsies out of twenty appear to be original arterial diseases, and the water, which has been supposed to be their cause, is as much the effect of preternatural and morbid action in the blood-vessels, as pus, gangrene, and schirrus are of previous inflammation. This has been demonstrated, by the late Dr. Cooper, in a man who died of an ascites in the Pennsylvania hospital. Pus and blood, as well as water, were found in the cavity of the abdomen. It is no objection to this theory of dropsy, that we sometimes find water in the cavities of the body after death, without any marks of inflammation in the contiguous blood-vessels. We often find pus, both in the living and dead body, under the same circumstances, where we are sure it was not preceded by any of the obvious marks of inflammation.

[10] On Dropsies, vol. II.

25. The _hæmorrhagic_ state of fever, in which are included discharges of blood from the nose, lungs, stomach, liver, bowels, kidneys and bladder, hæmorrhoidal vessels, uterus, and skin. Hæmorrhages have been divided into active and passive. It would be more proper to divide them, like other states of general fever, into hæmorrhages of strong and feeble morbid action. There is seldom an issue of blood from a vessel in which there does not exist preternatural or accumulated excitement. We observe this hæmorrhagic state of fever most frequently in malignant fevers, in pulmonary consumption, in pregnancy, and in that period of life in which the menses cease to be regular.

26. The _amenorrhagic_ state of fever occurs more frequently than is suspected by physicians. A full and quick pulse, head-ach, thirst, and preternatural heat often accompany a chronic obstruction of the menses. The inefficacy, and even hurtful effects, of what are called emenagogue medicines, in this state of the system, without previous depletion, show the propriety of introducing it among the different states of fever.

I have designedly omitted to take notice of other states of general fever accompanied with local disease, because they are most frequently combined with some one or more of those which have been mentioned. They may all be seen in Dr. Cullen's Synopsis, with their supposed respective generic characters, under the class of pyrexiæ, and the order of fevers. We come now in the

III. And last place, to mention the _misplaced_ states of fever. The term is not a new one in medicine. The gout is said to be misplaced, when it passes from the feet to the viscera. The periodical pains in the head, eyes, ears, jaws, hips, and back, which occur in the sickly autumnal months, and which impart no fulness, force, nor frequency to the pulse, are all misplaced fevers. There are, besides these, many other local morbid affections, which are less suspected of belonging to febrile diseases. The nature of these states of fever may easily be understood, by recollecting one of the laws of sensation, that is, that certain impressions, which excite neither sensation nor motion in the part of the body to which they are applied, excite both in another part. Thus worms, which are not felt in the stomach or bowels, often produce a troublesome sensation in the throat, and a stone, which is attended with no pain in the bladder, produces a troublesome itching in the glans penis. In like manner, the irritants which produce fever in ordinary cases pass through the blood-vessels, and convey their usual morbid effects into a remote part of the body which has been prepared to receive them by previous debility. That this is the case, I infer further, from fevers being called back from their misplaced or suffocated situations, by creating an artificial debility in the arteries by the abstraction of blood. This is often done in muscular convulsions, and in several diseases of the brain.

Under this class of fevers are included

27. The _chronic hepatic_ state of fever. The causes, symptoms, and remedies of the liver disease of the East-Indies, as mentioned by Dr. Girdlestone, all prove that it is nothing but a bilious fever translated from the blood-vessels, and absorbed, or suffocated, as it were, in the liver. This view of the chronic hepatitis is important, inasmuch as it leads to the liberal use of all the remedies which cure bilious fever. Gall stones and contusions now and then produce a hepatitis, but under no other circumstances do I believe it ever exists, but as a symptom of general or latent fever.

28. The hæmorrhoids are frequently a local disease, but they are sometimes accompanied with pain, giddiness, chills, and an active pulse. When these symptoms occur, it should be considered as a _hæmorrhoidal_ state of fever.

29. The opthalmia, when it occurs, as it frequently does in sickly seasons, with a quick and tense pulse, and pains diffused over the whole head, may properly be called an _opthalmic_ state of fever.

30. The tooth-ach, and

31. Ear-ach, when they arise from colds, and are attended with great heat, a quick and tense pulse, and pains in the head, are _odontalgic_ and _otalgic_ states of fever.

32. The apthæ, from the pain and fever which attend them, are justly entitled to the name of the _apthous_ state of fever.

33. The symptoms of scrophula, as described by Dr. Hardy, in his treatise on the glandular disease of Barbadoes, clearly prove it to be a _misplaced_ state of fever.

34. The scurvy has lately been proved by Dr. Claiborne, in his inaugural dissertation, published in the year 1797, to arise from so many of the causes, and to possess so many of the symptoms, of the low chronic and petechial states of fever, that I see no impropriety in considering it as a state of fever.

35. The _convulsive_ or _spasmodic_ state of fever. Convulsions, it is well known, often usher in fevers, more especially in children. But the connection between spasmodic affections and fever, in adults, has been less attended to by physicians. The same causes which produced general fever and hepatitis in the East-Indies, in some soldiers, produced locked jaw in others. Several of the symptoms of this disease, as described by Dr. Girdlestone, such as coldness on the surface of the body, cold sweats on the hands and feet, intense thirst, a white tongue, incessant vomitings, and carbuncles, all belong to the malignant state of fever[11]. By means of blood-letting, and the other remedies for the violent state of bilious fever, I have seen the convulsions in this disease translated from the muscles to the blood-vessels, where they immediately produced _all_ the common symptoms of fever.

[11] Essay on the Spasmodic Affections in India, p. 53, 54, 55.

36. The _hysterical_ and _hypochondriacal_ states of fever. The former is known by a rising in the throat, which is for the most part erroneously ascribed to worms, by pale urine, and by a disposition to shed tears, or to laugh upon trifling occasions. The latter discovers itself by false opinions of the nature and danger of the disease under which the patient labours. Both these states of the nervous system occur frequently in the gout and in the malignant state of fever. It is common to say, in such cases, that patients have a complication of diseases; but this is not true, for the hysterical and hypochondriacal symptoms are nothing but the effects of one remote cause, concentrating its force chiefly upon the nerves and muscles.

37. The _cutaneous_ state of fever. Dr. Sydenham calls a dysentery a "febris introversa." Eruptions of the skin are often nothing but the reverse of this introverted fever. They are a fever translated to the skin; hence we find them most common in those countries and seasons in which fevers are epidemic. The prickly heat, the rash, and the essere of authors, are all states of misplaced fever. "Agues, fevers, and even _pleurisies_ (says Mr. Townsend, in his Journey through Spain[12]), are said often to terminate in scabies, and this frequently gives place to them, returning, however, when the fever ceases. In adults it takes possession of the hands and arms, with the legs and thighs, covering them with a filthy crust." Small boils are common among the children in Philadelphia, at the time the cholera infantum makes its appearance. These children always escape the summer epidemic. The elephantiasis described by Dr. Hillary, in his account of the diseases of Barbadoes, is evidently a translation of an intermittent to one of the limbs. It is remarkable, that the leprosy and malignant fevers of all kinds have appeared and declined together in the same ages and countries. But further, petechiæ sometimes appear on the skin without fever. Cases of this kind, with and without hæmorrhages, are taken notice of by Riverius[13], Dr. Duncan, and many other practical writers. They are cotemporary or subsequent to fevers of a malignant complexion. They occur likewise in the scurvy. From some of the predisposing, remote, and exciting causes of this disease, and from its symptoms and remedies, I have suspected it, like the petechiæ mentioned by Riverius, to be originally a fever generated by human miasmata, in a misplaced state. The hæmorrhages which sometimes accompany the scurvy, certainly arise from a morbid state of the blood-vessels. The heat and quick pulse of fever are probably absent, only because the preternatural excitement of the whole sanguiferous system is confined to those extreme or cutaneous vessels which pour forth blood. In like manner the fever of the small-pox deserts the blood-vessels, as soon as a new action begins on the skin. Or perhaps the excitability of the larger blood-vessels may be so far exhausted by the long or forcible impression of the remote and predisposing causes of the scurvy, as to be incapable of undergoing the convulsive action of general fever.

[12] Vol. II. Dublin edition, p. 262.

[13] Praxis Medica, lib. xviii. cap. i.

With this I close my inquiry into the cause of fever. It is imperfect from its brevity, as well as from other causes. I commit it to my pupils to be corrected and improved.

"We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow.
Our wiser sons, _I hope_, will think us so."

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE

_Bilious Remitting Yellow Fever_,

AS IT

APPEARED IN PHILADELPHIA,

IN THE YEAR 1793.

Before I proceed to deliver the history of this fever, it will be proper to give a short account of the diseases which preceded it.

The state of the weather during the first seven months of the year, and during the time in which the fever prevailed in the city, as recorded by Mr. Rittenhouse, will be inserted immediately after the history of the disease.

The _mumps_, which made their appearance in December, 1792, continued to prevail during the month of January, 1793. Besides this disease there were many cases of catarrh in the city, brought on chiefly by the inhabitants exposing themselves for several hours on the damp ground, in viewing the aërial voyage of Mr. Blanchard, on the 9th day of the month.

The weather, which had been moderate in December and January, became cold in February. The mumps continued to prevail during this month with symptoms so inflammatory as to require, in some cases, two bleedings. Many people complained this month of pains and swellings in the jaws. A few had the scarlatina anginosa.

The mumps, pains in the jaws, and scarlatina continued throughout the month of March. I was called to two cases of pleurisy in this month, which terminated in a temporary mania. One of them was in a woman of ninety years of age, who recovered. The blood drawn in the other case (a gentleman from Maryland) was dissolved. The continuance of a tense pulse induced me, notwithstanding, to repeat the bleeding. The blood was now sizy. A third bleeding was prescribed, and my patient recovered. Several cases of obstinate erysipelas succeeded inoculation in children during this and the next month, one of which proved fatal.

Blossoms were universal on the fruit-trees, in the gardens of Philadelphia, on the first day of April. The scarlatina anginosa continued to be the reigning epidemic in this month.

There were several warm days in May, but the city was in general healthy. The birds appeared two weeks sooner this spring than usual.

The register of the weather shows, that there were many warm days in June. The scarlatina continued to maintain its empire during this month.

The weather was uniformly warm in July. The scarlatina continued during the beginning of this month, with symptoms of great violence. A son of James Sharswood, aged seven years, had, with the common symptoms of this disease, great pains and swellings in his limbs, accompanied with a tense pulse. I attempted in vain to relieve him by vomits and purges. On the 10th day of the month, I ordered six ounces of blood to be drawn from his arm, which I observed afterwards to be very sizy. The next day he was nearly well. Between the 22d and the 24th days of the month, there died three persons, whose respective ages were 80, 92, and 96-1/2. The weather at this time was extremely warm. I have elsewhere taken notice of the fatal influence of extreme heat, as well as cold, upon human life in old people. A few bilious remitting fevers appeared towards the close of this month. One of them under my care ended in a typhus or chronic fever, from which the patient was recovered with great difficulty. It was the son of Dr. Hutchins, of the island of Barbadoes.

The weather, for the first two or three weeks in August, was temperate and pleasant. The cholera morbus and remitting fevers were now common. The latter, were attended with some inflammatory action in the pulse, and a determination to the breast. Several dysenteries appeared at this time, both in the city and in its neighbourhood. During the latter part of July, and the beginning of this month, a number of the distressed inhabitants of St. Domingo, who had escaped the desolation of fire and sword, arrived in the city. Soon after their arrival, the influenza made its appearance, and spread rapidly among our citizens. The scarlatina still kept up a feeble existence among children. The above diseases were universal, but they were not attended with much mortality. They prevailed in different parts of the city, and each seemed to appear occasionally to be the ruling epidemic. The weather continued to be warm and dry. There was a heavy rain on the 25th of the month, which was remembered by the citizens of Philadelphia, as the last that fell for many weeks afterwards.

There was something in the heat and drought of the summer months which was uncommon, in their influence upon the human body. Labourers every where gave out (to use the country phrase) in harvest, and frequently too when the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer was under 84°. It was ascribed by the country people to the calmness of the weather, which left the sweat produced by heat and labour to dry slowly upon the body.

The crops of grain and grass were impaired by the drought. The summer fruits were as plentiful as usual, particularly the melons, which were of an excellent quality. The influence of the weather upon the autumnal fruits, and upon vegetation in general, shall be mentioned hereafter.

I now enter upon a detail of some solitary cases of the epidemic, which soon afterwards spread distress through our city, and terror throughout the United States.

On the 5th of August, I was requested by Dr. Hodge to visit his child. I found it ill with a fever of the bilious kind, which terminated (with a yellow skin) in death on the 7th of the same month.

On the 6th of August, I was called to Mrs. Bradford, the wife of Mr. Thomas Bradford. She had all the symptoms of a bilious remittent, but they were so acute as to require two bleedings, and several successive doses of physic. The last purge she took was a dose of calomel, which operated plentifully. For several days after her recovery, her eyes and face were of a yellow colour.

On the same day, I was called to the son of Mrs. M'Nair, who had been seized violently with all the usual symptoms of a bilious fever. I purged him plentifully with salts and cremor tartar, and took ten or twelve ounces of blood from his arm. His symptoms appeared to yield to these remedies; but on the 10th of the month a hæmorrhage from the nose came on, and on the morning of the 12th he died.

On the 7th of this month I was called to visit Richard Palmer, a son of Mrs. Palmer, in Chesnut-street. He had been indisposed for several days with a sick stomach, and vomiting after eating. He now complained of a fever and head-ach. I gave him the usual remedies for the bilious fever, and he recovered in a few days. On the 15th day of the same month I was sent for to visit his brother William, who was seized with all the symptoms of the same disease. On the 5th day his head-ach became extremely acute, and his pulse fell to sixty strokes in a minute. I suspected congestion to have taken place in his brain, and ordered him to lose eight ounces of blood. His pulse became more frequent, and less tense after bleeding, and he recovered in a day or two afterwards.

On the 14th day of this month I was sent for to visit Mrs. Leaming, the wife of Mr. Thomas Leaming. I suspected at first that she had the influenza, but in a day or two her fever put on bilious symptoms. She was affected with an uncommon disposition to faint. Her pulse was languid, but _tense_. I took a few ounces of blood from her, and purged her with salts and calomel. I afterwards gave her a small dose of laudanum which disagreed with her. In my note book I find I have recorded that "she was worse for it." I was led to make this remark by its being so very uncommon for a person, who had been properly bled and purged, to take laudanum in a common bilious fever without being benefited by it. She recovered, however, slowly, and was yellow for many days afterwards.

On the morning of the 18th of this month I was requested to visit Peter Aston, in Vine-street, in consultation with Dr. Say. I found him on the third day of a most acute bilious fever. His eyes were inflamed, and his face flushed with a deep red colour. His pulse seemed to forbid evacuations. We prescribed the strongest cordials, but to no purpose. We found him, at 6 o'clock in the evening, sitting upon the side of his bed, perfectly sensible, but without a pulse, with cold clammy hands, and his face of a yellowish colour. He died a few hours after we left him.

None of the cases which I have mentioned excited the least apprehension of the existence of a malignant or yellow fever in our city; for I had frequently seen sporadic cases in which the common bilious fever of Philadelphia had put on symptoms of great malignity, and terminated fatally in a few days, and now and then with a yellow colour on the skin, before or immediately after death.

On the 19th of this month I was requested to visit the wife of Mr. Peter Le Maigre, in Water-street, between Arch and Race-streets, in consultation with Dr. Foulke and Dr. Hodge. I found her in the last stage of a highly bilious fever. She vomited constantly, and complained of great heat and burning in her stomach. The most powerful cordials and tonics were prescribed, but to no purpose. She died on the evening of the next day.

Upon coming out of Mrs. Le Maigre's room I remarked to Dr. Foulke and Dr. Hodge, that I had seen an unusual number of bilious fevers, accompanied with symptoms of uncommon malignity, and that I suspected all was not right in our city. Dr. Hodge immediately replied, that a fever of a most malignant kind had carried off four or five persons within sight of Mr. Le Maigre's door, and that one of them had died in twelve hours after the attack of the disease. This information satisfied me that my apprehensions were well founded. The origin of this fever was discovered to me at the same time, from the account which Dr. Foulke gave me of a quantity of damaged coffee which had been thrown upon Mr. Ball's wharf, and in the adjoining dock, on the 24th of July, nearly in a line with Mr. Le Maigre's house, and which had putrefied there to the great annoyance of the whole neighbourhood.

After this consultation I was soon able to trace all the cases of fever which I have mentioned to this source. Dr. Hodge lived a few doors above Mr. Le Maigre's, where his child had been exposed to the exhalation from the coffee for several days. Mrs. Bradford had spent an afternoon in a house directly opposite to the wharf and dock on which the putrid coffee had emitted its noxious effluvia, a few days before her sickness, and had been much incommoded by it. Her sister, Mrs. Leaming, had visited her during her illness at her house, which was about two hundred yards from the infected wharf. Young Mr. M'Nair and Mrs. Palmer's two sons had spent whole days in a compting house near where the coffee was exposed, and each of them had complained of having been made sick by its offensive smell, and Mr. Aston had frequently been in Water-street near the source of the exhalation.

This discovery of the malignity, extent, and origin of a fever which I knew to be attended with great danger and mortality, gave me great pain. I did not hesitate to name it the _bilious remitting yellow fever_. I had once seen it epidemic in Philadelphia, in the year 1762. Its symptoms were among the first impressions which diseases made upon my mind. I had recorded some of these symptoms, as well as its mortality. I shall here introduce a short account of it, from a note book which I kept during my apprenticeship.

"In the year 1762, in the months of August, September, October, November, and December, the bilious yellow fever prevailed in Philadelphia, after a _very hot summer_, and spread like a plague, carrying off daily, for some time, upwards of twenty persons.

"The patients were generally seized with rigours, which were succeeded with a violent fever, and pains in the head and back. The pulse was full, and sometimes irregular. The eyes were inflamed, and had a yellowish cast, and a vomiting almost always attended.

"The 3d, 5th, and 7th days were mostly critical, and the disease generally terminated on one of them, in life or death.

"An eruption on the 3d or 7th day over the body proved salutary.

"An excessive heat and burning about the region of the liver, with cold extremities, portended death to be at hand."

I have taken notice, in my note book, of the principal remedy which was prescribed in this fever by my preceptor in medicine, but this shall be mentioned hereafter.

Upon my leaving Mrs Le Maigre's, I expressed my distress at what I had discovered, to several of my fellow-citizens. The report of a malignant and mortal fever being in town spread in every direction, but it did not gain universal credit. Some of those physicians who had not seen patients in it denied that any such fever existed, and asserted (though its mortality was not denied) that it was nothing but the common annual remittent of the city. Many of the citizens joined the physicians in endeavoring to discredit the account I had given of this fever, and for a while it was treated with ridicule or contempt. Indignation in some instances was excited against me, and one of my friends, whom I advised in this early stage of the disease to leave the city, has since told me that for that advice "he had hated me."

My lot in having thus disturbed the repose of the public mind, upon the subject of general health, was not a singular one. There are many instances upon record, of physicians who have rendered themselves unpopular, and even odious to their fellow-citizens, by giving the first notice of the existence of malignant and mortal diseases. A physician, who asserted that the plague was in Messina, in the year 1743, excited so much rage in the minds of his fellow-citizens against him, as to render it necessary for him to save his life by retreating to one of the churches of that city.

In spite, however, of all opposition, the report of the existence of a malignant fever in the city gained so much ground, that the governor of the state directed Dr. Hutchinson, the inspector of sickly vessels, to inquire into the truth of it, and into the nature of the disease.

In consequence of this order, the doctor wrote letters to several of the physicians in the city, requesting information relative to the fever. To his letter to me, dated the 24th of August, I replied on the same day, and mentioned not only the existence of a malignant fever, but the streets it occupied, and my belief of its being derived from a quantity of coffee which had putrified on a wharf near Arch-street. This, and other information collected by the doctor, was communicated to the health officer, in a letter dated the 27th of August, in which he mentioned the parts of the city where the disease prevailed, and the number of persons who had died of it, supposed by him to be about 40, but which subsequent inquiries proved to be more than 150. He mentioned further, in addition to the damaged coffee, some putrid hides, and other putrid animal and vegetable substances, as the supposed cause of the fever, and concluded by saying, as he had not heard of any foreigners or sailors being infected, nor of its being found in any lodging-houses, that "it was not an imported disease."

In the mean while the disease continued to spread, and with a degree of mortality that had never been known from common fevers.

On the 25th of the month, the college of physicians was summoned by their president to meet, in order to consult about the best methods of checking the progress of the fever in the city. After some consideration upon the nature of the disease, a committee was appointed to draw up some directions for those purposes; and the next day the following were presented to the college, and adopted unanimously by them. They were afterwards published in most of the newspapers.

_Philadelphia, August 26th, 1793._

The college of physicians having taking into consideration the malignant and contagious fever that now prevails in this city, have agreed to recommend to their fellow-citizens the following means of preventing its progress.

1st. That all unnecessary intercourse should be avoided with such persons as are infected by it.

2d. To place a mark upon the door or window of such houses as have any infected persons in it.

3d. To place the persons infected in the centre of large and airy rooms, in beds without curtains, and to pay the strictest regard to cleanliness, by frequently changing their body and bed linen, also by removing, as speedily as possible, all offensive matters from their rooms.

4th. To provide a large and airy hospital, in the neighbourhood of the city, for the reception of such poor persons as cannot be accommodated with the above advantages in private houses.

5th. To put a stop to the tolling of the bells.

6th. To bury such persons as die of this fever in carriages, and in as private a manner as possible.

7th. To keep the streets and wharves of the city as clean as possible. As the contagion of the disease may be taken into the body, and pass out of it without producing the fever, unless it be rendered active by some occasional cause, the following means should be attended to, to prevent the contagion being excited into action in the body.

8th. To avoid all fatigue of body and mind.

9th. To avoid _standing_ or _sitting_ in the sun; also in a current of air, or in the evening air.

10th. To accommodate the dress to the weather, and to exceed rather in warm, than in cool clothing.

11th. To avoid intemperance, but to use fermented liquors, such as wine, beer, and cyder, in moderation.

The college conceive _fires_ to be very ineffectual, if not dangerous means of checking the progress of this fever. They have reason to place more dependence upon the burning of _gunpowder_. The benefits of _vinegar_ and _camphor_ are confined chiefly to infected rooms, and they cannot be used too frequently upon handkerchiefs, or in smelling-bottles, by persons whose duty calls to visit or attend the sick.

Signed by order of the college,

WILLIAM SHIPPEN, jun.
_Vice president_.

SAMUEL P. GRIFFITTS,
_Secretary_.

From a conviction that the disease originated in the putrid exhalations from the damaged coffee, I published in the American Daily Advertiser, of August 29th, a short address to the citizens of Philadelphia, with a view of directing the public attention to the spot where the coffee lay, and thereby of checking the progress of the fever as far as it was continued by the original cause.

This address had no other effect than to produce fresh clamours against the author; for the citizens, as well as most of the physicians of Philadelphia, had adopted a traditional opinion that the yellow fever could exist among us only by importation from the West-Indies.

In consequence, however, of a letter from Dr. Foulke to the mayor of the city, in which he had decided, in a positive manner, in favour of the generation of the fever from the putrid coffee, the mayor gave orders for the removal of the coffee, and the cleaning of the wharf and dock. It was said that measures were taken for this purpose; but Dr. Foulke, who visited the place where the coffee lay, repeatedly assured me, that they were so far from being effectual, that an offensive smell was exhaled from it many days afterwards.

I shall pass over, for the present, the facts and arguments on which I ground my assertion of the generation of this fever in our city. They will come in more properly in the close of the history of the disease.

The seeds of the fever, when received into the body, were generally excited into action in a few days. I met with several cases in which they acted so as to produce a fever on the same day in which they were received into the system, and I heard of two cases in which they excited sickness, fainting, and fever within one hour after the persons were exposed to them. I met with no instance in which there was a longer interval than sixteen days between their being received into the body and the production of the disease.

This poison acted differently in different constitutions, according to previous habits, to the degrees of predisposing debility, or to the quantity and concentration of the miasmata which had been received into the body.

In some constitutions, the miasmata were at once a remote, a predisposing, and an exciting cause of the disease; hence some persons were affected by them, who had not departed in any instance from their ordinary habits of living, as to diet, dress, and exercise. But it was more frequently brought on by those causes acting in succession to each other.

I shall here refer the reader to the principles laid down in the outlines of the theory of fever, for an account of the manner in which the system was predisposed to this disease, by the debility induced by the reduction of its excitement, by action and abstraction, and by subsequent depression. Where a predisposition was thus produced, the fever was excited by the following causes, acting directly or indirectly upon the system. Where this predisposition did not exist, the exciting causes produced both the predisposition and the disease. They were,

1. _Great labour_, or exercises of body or mind, in walking, riding, watching, or the like. It was labour which excited the disease so universally among the lower class of people. A long walk often induced it. Few escaped it after a day, or even a few hours spent in gunning. A hard trotting horse brought it on two of my patients. Perhaps riding on horseback, and in the sun, was the exciting cause of the disease in most of the citizens and strangers who were affected by it in their flight from the city. A fall excited it in a girl, and a stroke upon the head excited it in a young man who came under my care. Many people were seized with the disease in consequence of their exertions on the night of the 7th of September, in extinguishing the fire which consumed Mr. Dobson's printing-office, and even the less violent exercise of working the fire engines, for the purpose of laying the dust in the streets, added frequently to the number of the sick.

2. _Heat_, from every cause, but more especially the heat of the sun, was a very common exciting cause of the disease. The register of the weather during the latter end of August, the whole of September, and the first two weeks in October will show how much the heat of the sun must have contributed to excite the disease, more especially among labouring people. The heat of common fires likewise became a frequent cause of the activity of the miasmata where they had been received into the body; hence the greater mortality of the disease among bakers, blacksmiths, and hatters than among any other class of people.

3. _Intemperance_ in eating or drinking. A plentiful meal, and a few extra glasses of wine seldom failed of exciting the fever. But where the body was strongly impregnated with the seeds of the disease, even the smallest deviation from the customary stimulus of diet, in respect to quality or quantity, roused them into action. A supper of twelve oysters in one, and of but three in another, of my patients produced the disease. Half an ounce of meat excited it in a lady who had lived, by my advice, for two weeks upon milk and vegetables, and even a supper of sallad, dressed after the French fashion, excited it in one of Dr. Mease's patients.

4. _Fear._ In many people the disease was excited by a sudden paroxysm of fear; but I saw some remarkable instances where timid people escaped the disease, although they were constantly exposed to it. Perhaps a moderate degree of fear served to counteract the excessive stimulus of the miasmata, and thereby to preserve the body in a state of healthy equilibrium. I am certain that fear did no harm after the disease was formed, in those cases where great morbid excess of action had taken place. It was an early discovery of this fact which led me not to conceal from my patients the true name of this fever, when I was called to them on the _day_ of their being attacked by it. The fear co-operated with some of my remedies (to be mentioned hereafter) in reducing the morbid excitement of the arterial system.

5. _Grief._ It was remarkable that the disease was not excited in many cases in the attendants upon the sick, while there was a hope of their recovery. The grief which followed the extinction of hope, by death, frequently produced it within a day or two afterwards, and that not in one person only, but often in most of the near relations of the deceased. But the disease was also produced by a change in the state of the mind directly opposite to that which has been mentioned. Many persons that attended patients who recovered, were seized with the disease a day or two after they were relieved from the toils and anxiety of nursing. The collapse of the mind from the abstraction of the stimulus of hope and desire, by their ample gratification, probably produced that debility, and loss of the equilibrium in the system, which favoured the activity of the miasmata in the manner formerly mentioned[14].

[14] Outlines of a Theory of Fever.

The effects of both the states of mind which have been described, have been happily illustrated by two facts which are recorded by Dr. Jackson[15]. He tells us, that the garrisons of Savannah and York-Town were both healthy during the siege of those towns, but that the former became sickly as soon as the French and American armies retreated, from before it, and the latter, immediately after its capitulation.

[15] Treatise on the Fevers of Jamaica, p. 298.

6. _Cold._ Its action, in exciting the disease, depended upon the diminution of the necessary and natural heat of the body, and thereby so far destroying the equilibrium of the system, as to enable the miasmata to produce excessive or convulsive motions in the blood-vessels. The night air, even in the warm month of September, was often so cool as to excite the disease, where the dress and bed-clothes were not accommodated to it. It was excited in one case by a person's only wetting his feet, in the month of October, and neglecting afterwards to change his shoes and stockings. Every change in the weather, that was short of producing frost, evidently increased the number of sick people. This was obvious after the 18th and 19th of September, when the mercury fell to 44° and 45°. The hopes of the city received a severe disappointment upon this occasion, for I well recollect there was a general expectation that this change in the weather would have checked the disease. The same increase of the number of sick was observed to follow the cool weather which succeeded the 6th and 7th of October, on which days the mercury fell to 43° and 46°.

It was observed that those persons who were _habitually_ exposed to the cool air, were less liable to the disease than others. I ascribe it to the _habitual_ impression of the cool night air upon the bodies of the city watchmen, that but four or five of them, out of twenty-five, were affected by the disease.

After the body had been heated by violent exercise, a breeze of cool air sometimes excited the disease in those cases where there had been no change in the temperature of the weather.

7. _Sleep._ A great proportion of all who were affected by this fever, were attacked in the night. Sleep induced what I have called debility from abstraction, and thereby disposed the miasmata which floated in the blood, to act with such force upon the system as to destroy its equilibrium, and thus to excite a fever. The influence of sleep as a predisposing, and exciting cause was often assisted by the want of bed-clothes, suited to the midnight or morning coolness of the air.

8. _Immoderate evacuations._ The efficacy of moderate purging and bleeding in preventing the disease, led some people to use those remedies in an excess, which both predisposed to the disease, and excited it. The morbid effects of these evacuations, were much aided by fear, for it was this passion which perverted the judgment in such a manner, as to lead to the excessive use of remedies, which, to be effectual, should only be used in moderate quantities.

The disease appeared with different symptoms, and in different degrees, in different people. They both varied likewise with the weather. In describing the disease, I shall take notice of the changes in the symptoms, which were produced by changes in the temperature of the air.