412 [Assembly 



than the trilling eruption we frequetly notice in fever. Nearly all the 

 cases recovered. I do not remember more than one or two that ter- 

 minated fatally, and in these no post mortem examination was al- 

 lowed. The treatment pursued was very simple, and consisted chiefly 

 in attention to cleanliness, and to ventilation; 'the patients being al- 

 lowed the free use of simple beverage, with the occasional admin- 

 istration of mild purgatives in some instances, and small doses of 

 morphine in others; indeed fresh air as far as it could be had, and 

 cold water, were the principal agents to which I trusted for the 

 restoration of my patients, and I had seldom reason to regret my 

 reliance on this simple means. The benefit of this mode of treating 

 these cases appeared to me particularly marked during the conviiles- 

 ence, which was surprisingly rapid, and almost invariably commenced 

 on or near the fourteenth day after the attack. 



The poor population of this district was principally Irish and 

 German, whose habits, as you know, are more or less filthy, and who 

 lived crowded together, with a family in every room in the house, 

 and sometimes more. I did not observe however, that the disease 

 was decidedly more prevalent in those parts of the district which were 

 most filthy and crowded, at least so far as individual houses were 

 concerned, although if the district be divided into two equal parts 

 by the Bowery, it is a remarkable fact that all the cases, I think 

 without an exception, occurred to the west of this great thoroughfare, 

 and it is quite certain, also, that the poor population is more crowded 

 in this western division where the fever prevailed, than in the eastern 

 where it did not exist at all. 



The most striking circumstance that I noticed in this fever was, 

 that in every instance (save one which I regard as a doubtful case) 

 the disease existed either in basements, or the first floor of houses 

 that had neither basements nor cellars under them. This circum- 

 stance early attracted my attention, and constant inquiry never 

 enabled me to find any cases in the upper stories of those houses in 

 which the disease was prevailing in the basement rooms, and yet 

 these upper rooms were as full of people and as filthy as those below, 

 and a more or less frequent communication existed between them. 

 As a matter of course these basements were less exposed to ventila- 

 tion than the rooms above, but this was not always the case. I 

 remember, in particular, one old wooden house at the corner of two 

 streets, without cellar or basement, in which the disease prevailed on 

 the ground floor where the ventilation was excellent, and where 

 filthy habits were certainly not observed. Indeed it has always been 



