264 ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAGION. 



agro Juliacensi, maxima strages facta est, et ad minimum 8000 militum, occisa fueruni 

 pneter majorem adhuc famulorum, rusticorum, aurigarum, puerorum & niulierum nu- 

 merum, atque equorum copiam innumerabilem ; corpora inhumata sub diu cornputruerutit, 

 nulla tamen pestis insecuta est. Hie inGermania, duranlibus his nostri aevi crudelissimis 

 bellis, etiam plurimae maximse strages factae suut, post multas tamen illarura nulla peste 

 subsequente." (p. 31.) These facts are strengthened by a well-known circumstance, that 

 in no case could the origin of a putrid fever be ever traced to the effluvia of dead bodies 

 in dissecting room. Nor have fevers been observed to originate, or to rage more severely 

 in houses surrounding church-yards, in the middle of large towns, though the stench of 

 the putrid bodies, over-heaped in such receptacles, is often insufferably offensive.'* 



It has also been stated, that decomposed vegetable matter is not, as contended for by 

 many physicians, the cause of yellow fever. The following fact, stated by Dr. John 

 Stewart, of Grenada, abundantly proves that vegetable filth has no more agency in the 

 production of that peculiar type of fever than putrid animal substances. " That vegetable 

 and animal matters in a state of putrefaction do produce disease is not to be denied ; but 

 that vegetable matter in a state of corruption is, on many occasions, harmless, is evident, 

 from the very offensive heaps of cotton-seed, and the pulpy covering of the coffee-berry, 

 which are daily to be met with in Demerara, without being considered as a cause of fever; 

 nor should this circumstance be omitted, that when fever does prevail, it is at a season 

 when those causes do not act powerfully." See Observations on the Nature and Treat- 

 ment of the Malignant or Yellow Fever which prevailed in the island of Grenada, (W. I.) 

 in the years 1793, 1794, and 1795, in a Letter to David Hosack, front John Stewart, 

 M. D., <?-c. #c. Amer. Med. and Phil. Register^ vol. 3. p. 183. 



It may also be remarked as an additional testimony to that stated by Dr. Stewart, to 

 prove that the yellow fever does not derive its origin from decomposed vegetable matter, 

 that whenever that disease has prevailed in the United States, it has not appeared in the 

 country where such vegetable matter is most abundant ; but has been chiefly confined to 

 our largest cities, and those towns which are situated on the seaboard; a fact totally inex- 

 plicable upon the principle that the yellow fever is the product of vegetable putrefaction. 

 1 am fully aware the opinion has been entertained that this form of fever prevails 

 in the iuterior of our country, and especially in the vicinity of the lakes ; but whoever 

 will consult the statements furnished by physicians residing there, and who have had 

 the best means of obtaining correct information, will find ample refutation of that opinion. 

 See Frisbre's Sketch of the Medical Topography of the Military Tract of the State of 

 New-York; and Brown's Sketch of the Country watered by the Mohawk River, See. 



