16 GRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 
Arrived at Ounalaska and securely moored in a land-locked harbor surrounded by Alp-like hills, 
which presented a dreary picture of snowy desolation, we found the air uncommonly chilly and 
apparently disagreeable enough to give a seal bronchitis, although the inhabitants called it mild 
weather. An epidemic, from which a large portion of the native population of the island had died, 
prevailed in the little village off which we anchored, and the only physician of the place being also 
dangerously ill, the sick were without medical advice or attendance. During the few days of our 
stay every assistance in our power was rendered the sufferers, and we hope that our advent among 
them was the means of averting several funerals that otherwise would have taken place. 
DISEASES PECULIAR TO THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION. 
Clinical observation of the disease in question showed marked dyspnoea, broncophony, imper- 
tect arterialization of the biood, cough, with expectoration, pain, insomnia, and great depression 
both physical and psychical; in fact the latter symptom was the most characteristic; and it 
seemed impossible to impart the least ray of hope to a patient who had made up his mind to die 
from the offset of his attack. The disease was very rapid in its course and, considering the gravity 
of these assembled phenomena, there was but little of the fever that usually attends pneumonitis. 
The main symptom calling for relief seemed to be the marked asthenia, to combat which the 
administration of quinia, stimulants, and milk were resorted to with beneticial effects. It may be 
mentioned that the administration of quinia to these natives is attended with the happiest results. 
The attending physician at Ounalaska informs me that most of the ailments he has to treat among 
them being of an adynamic character he invariably gives quinia, the effect of which, he says, is 
almost magical. It is very much to be regretted that time and opportunity forbade a necropsy in 
one of these cases, for among the different aud varied forms under whici pneumonitis presents 
itself, and this type differing from any I have heretofore seen, it is not at all incredible that there 
may have been something distinctive about its morbid anatomy. 
What connection there may have been between the outbreak of the epidemic and the prevailing 
climatic and telluric influences it is impossible to say; but the well-known relations of meteoro- 
logical conditions to certain diseases would lead one to infer that the previous occurrence of several 
earthquake shocks, or, What is more probable, a relatively mild winter, with an unusual amount of 
precipitation, may have been the predisposing cause ; not to mention the interminable diet of fish 
and whale of the Aleutian, his fondness for “quass,” and his inability to resist slight causes of 
psychical depression. 
So far as it is possible to ascertain the disease seems to have been confined almost exclusively 
to the native population. At Ounalaska the only sufferer not a native was from the Island of 
Mauritius. The epidemic also prevailed extensively at Saint Paul’s, Unga, Kodiak, Cook’s Inlet, 
and Prince William Sound, a singular coincidence connected with the outbreak being its appear- 
ance at these places immediately or soon atter the arrival of the first vessel in port. This cireum- 
stance so impressed itself on the native mind as to give rise to a general and strong belief in the 
importation of the disease. 
It is not at all unlikely that sickness of the foregoing character has occurred from time to 
time among the Aleutians. We have a mention of at least one outbreak, where it is stated that 
during a few days of unusually warm weather an epidemic of bilious pneumonia made its appear- 
ance at Kodiak, one of the adjacent islands, attacking about fifty of the natives.* 
The same authority reports the prevalence of intermittent fever at Cook’s Inlet among a 
white population who lived on a bluff several hundred feet bigh in houses exposed to a strong 
breeze directly from the inlet. The reporter states that the disease might have been contracted 
elsewhere; but happening after a sea voyage of forty days, and in persons previously in good health, 
he attributes it to locality. In a conversation with Mr. Petroff, whose topographical knowledge 
of this part of Alaska qualifies him to give an intelligent opinion, he informed me that for many 
miles around the bluff in question the land is low and marshy, but he thinks it is not malarious, 
and quotes the opinion of Dr. Govorlivo, a Russian surgeon, who says that in summer the weather 
of Cook’s Inlet is warm and clear; in winter the thermometer falls to 40° below freezing; rain 
and fog are rare, and the atmosphere is clear, bracing, and healthy. These observations, the 
Doctor adds, are supported by Admiral Tebenkoff. 
* Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal, 1870, vol. iv, p. 337. 
