Format 
Page no. 
Search this text 
Title:  A description of the malignant, infectious fever prevailing at present in Philadelphia; with an account of the means to prevent infection, and the remedies and method of treatment, which have been found most successful. / By William Currie, Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Author: Currie, William, 1754-1828.
Table of contents | Add to bookbag
for some time past, been very epidemic, is a question that I shall not at present enter into the discussion of.A physician under the signature of Quaestor Veritatis, in the Federal Gazette of the 28th of August, asserts that the present malignant fever is only a modification of the influ|enza, and has attempted to support his opinion in the fol|lowing manner: "That the long continued heat and drought have relaxed, debilitated and disposed the bodies of persons who lead indolent lives, are imployed in sedentary occupati|ons, or accustomed to intemperance, to fevers attended with symptoms of putrefaction must be obvious to every person acquainted with the animal oeconomy, and that diseases of the most inflammatory nature will, in their progress, produce the most unequivocal symptoms of putrefaction, or a gangre|nous tendency of the solids under such circumstances, is well known to every person conversant with the records of medicine.It is under such circumstances that the small pox and mea|zles become highly putrid and malignant, and it is in persons of this description, that the scarlatina anginosa assumes the form and features of the cynanche maligna.It is however said, that as a greater proportion of people have died in water-street, than in any other street of the ci|ty, there must be some local source of specific contagion. But this may be explained more rationally from there being a less portion of pure air there than in any other parts of the city, owing to the situation of the houses on the west side, being half buried under ground, the number of sailor taverns and huxter's shops, which are receptacles of all kinds of filth, dirt and nastiness, and which from their situation are excluded from the benefit of free ventilation, &c. Air de|prived of free circulation and frequently respired, is robbed of its vivifying principle, for want of which life can not be supported, nor fires kindled."If upon a dispassionate enquiry, it shall be found that those affected with typhous and malignant symptoms, have com|municated the disease to those residing in other parts of the city, who came to visit them, or being themselves removed to other parts, communicated it to their attendants, who were not previously affected with the typhous diathesis, or had been previously affected with the influenza or other dis|ease, the opinion of this anonimous writer will be completely subverted. But on the contrary, if it shall appear, that those circumstanced as above mentioned, who have not had the influenza, have been attacked by it soon after intercourse with those labouring under the symptoms of malignant fe|ver, it is a strong presumption in favour of his opinion. This is a question which can only be decided by a collection and accurate statement of facts, and till such collection and statement is made, every physician whose object is truth, will suspend his judgment.From the scrutiny which has been made by different phy|sicians, and particularly by Dr. Hutchinson, the physician of the port, there has not been found evidence sufficient to afford any suspicion that the disease was imported by the French e|migrants from the west-indies, or generated on board any of their vessels.And as there are no examples on record, since physicians became acquainted with the constituent parts and qualities of the atmosphere, of putrid fevers being produced by the effluvia of vegetable substances putrifying in the open air, but by the effluvia of living animals under certain circum|stances, I am sorry thus publicly to differ in opinion, on the present subject, from some of my fellow practitioners, for whose judgments and talents I entertain the highest venera|tion0