Yellow Fever X) 



In laying before the readers of this Journal the outcome of thirty- 

 five years' experience and of persistent investigations on the subject of yel- 

 low fever, I must mention that on many important points my views are 

 at variance with generally received opinions. For the accuracy of my 

 statements I am prepared to assume the full responsibility, but of the 

 soundness of my inferences others must judge. 



Yellow fever is a specific trasmissible disease running an acute course 

 and peculiar to certain localities in the lowlands of the Atlantic coasts of 

 the intertropical zone, though liable to be propagated through ships or 

 over land to other regions occupying low levels and having mean tempe- 

 ratures above 18° C. 



Historical Sketch. — There is good reason to believe that yellow fever 

 existed along the Atlantic coast of Mexico tnd Central America before the 

 days of Columbus ; for it is difficult to imagine that the disease known in 

 Montezuma's empire as the "Cocolitsle" (Herrera, Hist, de las Indias, 

 Dec. 4, Lib. IX, Cap. VIII) and which prevailed endemically in the present 

 site of Vancouver, could have been any other than the yellow fever of our 

 own days, and the same may be said of the epidemic disease designated un- 

 der the names of "Peste" and "Contagio", which made so much havoc 

 among the early Spanish settlers on their arrival in St. Domingo, Terra- 

 firma, Nombre de Dios, Darien and Vera Cruz. 



It is quite true that none of the Spanish chroniclers of that epoch 

 have given any account of the symptoms of the "Peste". They had prob- 

 ably taken warning from the panic which was produced in Spain by the 

 first epidemic in St. Domingo (1495), when one-third of their number were 

 carried off, and the few who returned to Spain were said to be saffron, 

 or gold coloured After that occurrence the home government had found so 

 much difficulty in recruiting settlers for their new colonies, that criminals 

 were enlisted for that purpose, with the inducement of a partial or total 

 condonation of their penalties. It was probably the fear of deterring 

 Europeans from coming over to America that induced the early chroniclers 



1) Reprinted from the Edinburgh Medical Journal for July, October and Novem- 

 ber, 1894. In Spanish, Cróii. Méd. Quir. de la Habana, t. XXI, ps. 143, 171, 202, 226 

 y 255. 



