256 ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAGION. 



physicians ascribed its origin in that year, is also evident from the facts stated in tVefol- 

 lowing extract from a letter which I received from the Rev- Dr. M'Knight of New York, 

 dated November 6tb, 1809. 



" In the year 1798, Melancthon Smith, and another man whose name I do not recol- 

 lect, were the two first instances of the yellow fever in New- York. Tliey had both beeD 

 on board the ship Fame, as she came up to the New-Slip in the East River, where she 

 unloaded her ballast, and emptied her bilge water. The stench occasioned thereby was 

 so intolerable, that, the wind being south, the inhabitants on the north side of the dock 

 had to shut up their doors and windows, and some of them left their houses. To my know- 

 ledge, as many as twelve or fifteen died in that neighbourhood, in the course of two weeks, 

 several of whose funerals I attended. This same vessel was afterwards removed to a dock 

 in the vicinity of the Coffee House: there several persons, who wrought on board of her, 

 who resided in Eden's Alley, took the fever, and carried it up into that part of the town. 

 Just at this time, there was a very heavy rain, which filled most of the cellars, in the 

 lower part of the city. The fever raged with alarming violence on Golden Hill. It as- 

 sumed the appearance of the plague." 



Thus, then, if appears that many cases of the fever of that year, existed in the city, before 

 the heavy fall of rain took place, and its effects upon the stored provisions were perceiv- 

 ed; consequently, t!e yellow- fever of that season did not proceed from those putrid ma- 

 terials as its source. That the foul state of the air which ensued lent wings to the con- 

 tagion, I trust will by all be admitted. 



NOTE E. (See page 225.) 



To employ the language of that distinguished medical philosopher, Ur. Chisholm, it 

 has become a kind of axiom in medical physics, that the effluvia of decomposed animal 

 bodies are the most certain and frequent cause of malignant and pestilential fevers. 



This opinion, which has been promulgated from age to age, and which has been so 

 generally received, because it has not been investigated, has, at length, been most ably 

 examined and refuted by Dr. Chisholm. 



From his learned and elaborate essay on this subject, I have taken the following state- 

 ment of facts, as illustrative of the doctrine which has been advanced in the text. 



"There are grounds of belief, that even the concentration of the miasms of putrid 

 animal substances, does not give rise to fever, and seldom, if ever, to dis-ease of any de- 

 scription. The following facts certainly militate against a contrary conclusion. 



