I 
TELLOW FEVER* 1*73 
Amongst the inhabitants are great numbers 
of Scotch and French. The latter are almost 
Incr forward, and at the hazard of their own lives doing all 
in their power to relieve their fellow citizens, and avert the 
general woe.—At Philadelphia, in the space of about three 
months, no less than four thousand inhabitants were swept 
off by this dreadful malady, a number, at that time, 
amounting to about one tenth of the whole. Baltimore 
and New York did not suffer so severely j but at Norfolk, 
which is computed to contain about three thousand people, 
no less than five hundred fell victims to it. 
The disorder has been treated very differently by different 
physicians, and as some few have survived under each sys¬ 
tem that has been tried, no general one has yet been adopt- 
ed. I was told, however, by several people in Norfolk, 
who resided in the most sickly part of the town during the 
whole time the fever lasted, that as a preventative medicine, a 
strong mercurial purge was very generally administered, and 
afterwards Peruvian bark ; and that few of those who had 
taken this medicine were attacked by the fever. All how¬ 
ever that can be done by medicine to stop the progress of the 
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disorder, when it has broke out in a town, seems to be of 
no very great effect - y for as long as the excessive hot weather 
lasts the fever rages, but it regularly disappears on the ap¬ 
proach of cold weather. With regard to its origin there 
have been various opinions; some have contended that it 
was Imported into every place where it appeared from the 
West Indies j others, that it was generated in the country. 
These opinions have been ably supported on either side of 
the question by medical men, who resided at. the different 
places where the fever has appeared. There are a few no- . 
torious circumstances, however, which lead me, as an indi¬ 
vidual, to think that the fever has been generated on the 
American continent. In the first place, the fever has always 
broken out in those parts of towns which were most closely 
built. 
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