Observations on the yellow fever : with an account of a new mode of treatment and cure for the same, as well as for putrid and malignant diseases in general, applicable also to cases of poisoning by mineral or vegetable substances : a parallel between the yellow fever and the plague, their causes, the rational treatment of the latter, with the means of retarding or preventing the return of both / by Anthony Plantou.

  • Plantou, Anthony.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the yellow fever : with an account of a new mode of treatment and cure for the same, as well as for putrid and malignant diseases in general, applicable also to cases of poisoning by mineral or vegetable substances : a parallel between the yellow fever and the plague, their causes, the rational treatment of the latter, with the means of retarding or preventing the return of both / by Anthony Plantou. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    2\ ambiguous to some, I will express my idea in less figu- rative language. I would say that these disastrous years derive their source from the mild ones, during which the poison has remained dormant; that this, by its accumulation, if I may be allowed the expression, fills the measure at last till it overflows; and that this over- flowing takes place at more or less distant periods, ac- cording to the degree of rapidity with which the col- lection of miasmata takes place. At length when the heat becomes sufficiently great, and every thing is ready to bring these effluvia into action, the atmosphere is suddenly charged with them, and carries death almost to every individual who breathes it. The degree of malignancy, therefore, is in proportion to the degree of heat, and it is this difference of temperature which con- stitutes the difference between the cause of plague and that of yellow fever. These remarks on the plague, lead me to extend the corollary to the yellow fever, and I shall call to the aid of my argument the epidemics of 1793 and 1798 in Philadelphia, that of 1819 in Char- leston, that of the same and of this present year in New Orleans, and lastly that of 1821 in Spain, as ter- rible witnesses. In the Medical Journal of Dr. Wm. Wittman. member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, and surgeon of the English army in Egypt in 1799, 1800, and 1801, I remark, that the treatment for the plague is the same as has been employed here to this