8 On the Autumnal Bilious Fever 



III. Some account of the Autumnal Bilious Fever of the 

 Atlantic side of Virginia. In a letter to the Editor 

 from the late Dr. James Green way, of Dinwid- 

 die-Cou?ity, Virginia. 



YOU ask if our Autumnal Fever is ever con- 

 tagious. I answer, no, never contagious. The ne- 

 groes are not so subject to it, or to common inter- 

 mittents, as the white people. Nor do they have it 

 so bad ; nor do they require more than half the medi- 

 cines that white people do ; when these last are sick 

 of it. 



It arises from effluvia exhaling from mud : and 

 from water at rest, though deep, such as mill-ponds, 

 the same exhalations are produced. I took the in- 

 fection myself, some time ago, from the exhalation 

 of stagnant water, covered with a seum, and suffered 

 all the usual symptoms of the Bilious Remittent com- 

 mon to this climate. 



The autumnal fever attacked sooner, and with more 

 violence, last fall, than it has done in the last 25 years 

 p-ist. It was more tediously continuing ; required 

 more medicines to cure it ; the sick were more liable 

 to relapse, and many of them still remain in a weak 

 state. The winter has been too warm, and not suffi- 

 ! ientlj cold to brace them. 



A yellowness of the skin, but always in the eyes, 

 takes place in i very one attacked with our fall- fever ; 



