TYPHOID FMiUMOMA. 113 



TYrHOlD PNEUMONIA. 



BY ROBKRT W. GIBBES, M. D. OF COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA. 



At page 9G of the August No. we took the liberty to call on the author of tlie following 

 dissertation on the peculiar diseases of the South and West, and there inquired — "Are not 

 such queslions intimately connected with the interests of Agriculture ? " and we might hava 

 added, humanilij .' at least when that interest is viewed in the broad light that we under- 

 stand and propose to dii^ciiss and defend it. 



For a man thinking, as too many ever are, of swelling the cuirent that flows and flows, 

 and will, it seems, forever flow, from the old Atlantic to the South and West, what more in- 

 teresting subject of inquiry than the diet, climate, and diseases comiected with those land* 

 of promise, and wiih any particular race or description of population ? 



Immediately after the above was written, and just too late to airest it, we receired the 

 following, for which many of om- readers, fanners as well as medical men, will luiite with us 

 in thanks to the author. 



[The following article was published in October, 1842, in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences. 

 It was copied into one of the agricultural papers of South Carolina, and, by request, has been revised and 

 had some additions made to it for publication in the Farmers' Library:] 



This disease prevails extensively during the winter months on our river swamp 

 plantations in the Southern States. It destroys more negroes than all others 

 combined, to which they are ordinarily liable. It is a matter of surprise that 

 southern pliysicians have ])ublished nothing in relation to it. In the whole series 

 of the American Journal of tlie Medical Sciences, there is but a single communi- 

 cation on the subject, and that is ot an epidemic which prevailed in the West, 

 and was confined chiefly to whites. I have for twelve years been familiar with, 

 this epidemic in the neighborhood of Columbia, and, having had a large number 

 of negroes under my care, my experience of it is published with the hope of add- 

 ing to the knowledge of its causes and treatment. 



I would here premise that I am fully impressed with the conviction that the 

 treatment of negroes must differ much from whites. The negro lives a life of 

 constant exercise, and exposure to changes of weather ; he uses a diet seldom 

 varying, mostly vegetable : he has a fixed and certain amount of labor to per- 

 form ; and he usually indulges in no excesses. The action of his system is more 

 equable ; his nervous power is more regularly distributed ; and the various func- 

 tions of the organs are less apt to be impeded than with whites, who live more 

 or less irregularly. Negroes sufl'er more from tlie diseases of cold weather, and 

 but little from heat ; they are less liable than whites to inflammatory affections ; 

 inflammation is not so active, and is much more readily controlled, with them ; 

 they are more easily brought under the influence of medicine, hence their diseases 

 are more curable. I speak of plantation negroes; those who are employed iu 

 domestic attendance on families and in cities, differing in their habits, have their 

 complaints modified by their employments, and are assimilated more to the con- 

 dition of the whites. Under similar circumstances, a single bleedinij, followed 

 by one or two doses of medicine, will control a case of acute pleurisy in a negro, 

 while three or four times as much bleeding and treatment will be required by a 

 white man of apparently similar strength. Negroes bear depletion badly, and 

 stimulants well. The Thomsonian or stimulating steam practice agrees well 

 with them, while it is injurious and destructive to whites. Opiates produce 

 more decidedly beneficial elTects on them, and much less injury or unpleasant 

 consequences. 



The disease of which I write is known by various names, according to the pre- 

 dominance of particular symptoms. The more violent cases being suddenly taken 

 with a chill and cold skin, and dying often without any reaction, it is sometimes 

 spoken of as the cold flague. The head being almost always affected, and be- 

 ('■^57) S 



