HOSACK ON THE LAWS OF CONTAGION. 223 



through neglect of frequently changing the bed and body linen of the 

 patient."* 



Similar facts are recorded of the visitation which New-York expe- 

 rienced of the same disease in 1795. Upon another occasion I shall 

 make public the evidence which is in my possession, indisputably proving 

 the importation of the yellow fever of that season from Port-au-Prince. 

 In that year the disease appeared upon the east side of the city, first 

 affecting some seamen who had received the infection from a brig directly 

 from Port-au-Prince ; from thence it spread in the vicinity from Dover- 

 street to Peck-slip ; but throughout that season it was confined, in a 

 great degree, to that part of the town where the local condition of the 

 atmosphere was peculiarly favourable to its diffusion; for not only an 

 unusual quantity of filth was accumulated in Peck-slip, but at that very 

 time a great number of emigrant poor had arrived from England, Ire- 

 land, and Scotland, so that the numerous lodging houses, especially in 

 that neighbourhood, were unusually crowded ; add to this, that the wea- 

 ther was uncommonly moist, and thereby peculiarly calculated to spread 

 the infection. According to the statement made by Dr. Bayley, it was 

 particularly fatal to the emigrants of that very summer; for "out of 

 nearly eight hundred persons who died," he observes, " not more than 

 one hundred and fifty were citizens of New-York. "f 



In another part of the same statement he remarks ; " so limited was <he 

 operation of the contagion that the number of those taken sick in low 

 situations, compared with those residing in more elevated parts of the 

 city, may be computed as twenty to one."J 



* See Observations on the Yellow Fever, in the Philadelphia Med. and Pbys. Journal, rol. 

 2. part. 1. t See Bayley on the Epidemic of 1795, p. 90. 



1 ibid. p. 80.— See also Letters to Dr. Buel by E. H. Smith. 



