108 



minds; and as time only is required for their investigation, it is 

 hoped that they will hereafter receive elucidation from inquiries 

 conducted under the auspices of this Association. 



In respeel to the yellow fever of New Orleans of the last year, 

 your committee arc unable to make any original presentation of 

 facts. In a communication received on the 28th ult., from a mem- 

 ber of the committee, Dr. Harrison, residing in that city, we are 

 referred for information on the subject to the New Orleans Medical 

 and Surgical Journal It appears from the last November number 

 of that periodical, that it was estimated that between 20 and 25,000 

 cases of the disease occurred in New Orleans, and the neighbouring 

 city of Lafayette, from the 3d of July to the 18th of October 1847. 

 and that the number of deaths was 2,739. The greatest mortality 

 occurred in September, in which month the deaths amounted to 

 1,044. In the number of the Journal now referred to, and also in 

 that for January, 1848, are interesting articles on the subject; and 

 as these are before the public, we shall only add that Dr. Harrison 

 states, that the epidemic did not differ from others he had witnessed: 

 "Except," he says, "in this: sulph. quiniae was more liberally used 

 than formerly, and generally with the best results, according to the 

 information I have been able to obtain from those in whom I have 

 confidence." 



During the year in which this yellow fever epidemic occurred in 

 New Orleans, or rather from the 19th December, 1846, to 18th 

 December, 1847, there were, in that city, but few deaths from the 

 contagious exanthemata, there being only 15 from scarlet fever, 38 

 from measles, and 27 from smallpox.* These facts are conformable 

 to the general laws which govern the prevalence of these diseases, 

 and to which we have before had occasion to advert. 



In Mobile, the yellow fever prevailed in the summer and autumn 

 of 1847 to a very limited extent. From an abstract, in Wood's 

 American Quarterly Retrospect,^ of Dr. Nott's paper on the subject, 

 published in the Charleston Medical Journal, we learn that "the 

 summer up to Aug. 1st, was the most temperate and rainy he had 

 seen for 12 years, the thermometer but once reaching 89° F. It 

 rained half the days in June, and 25 days in July, often in torrents; 

 in the midst of these incessant rains the yellow fever commenced. 

 From the first case i lSth July) until the 1st September, the disease 

 progressed very slowly, only about 60 cases occurring, 9 of which 



* New Orleans Med and .Surg. Jour., Jan. 1848. t April 1848. 



