On the local origin of the Yellow Fever epidemic of British Guiana : in a letter from Daniel Blair ... to John Davy ... with appended documents.

Date:
[1851?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the local origin of the Yellow Fever epidemic of British Guiana : in a letter from Daniel Blair ... to John Davy ... with appended documents. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    only not true as a generalisation, but the very reverse of truth. Dr. Fraser had no country practice during the time of the epidemic, and as, I am sure, no medical practitioner could have furnished him with materials for the description, he must have drawn entirely on his imagination. Many overseers and others who came to Water-street became affected on their return home; but the character of the cases was to have no issue, no lateral off-shoots. The epidemic seemed, in all cases, to have as it were dropped down into a family, and having struck its victim darted off to pounce down in the neighbourhood, or at a great distance. If Dr. Fraser, instead of speculating on fanciful sketches of the progress of thb epidemic in the rural districts, where he had no personal experience, and, I feel confident, could have had no trustworthy correspondents, had observed the habits of the disease from his own house, he might, in a great measure, have steered clear of his gross errors. On the right hand house, there was a field for observation ; on the left another ; under his feet another ; and before his eyes another. I, who was his left hand neighbour, took the disease. Besides having a nurse and my own servants constantly in the house, I had relays of bachelor friends, who every night watched by me and tended me. But no extension of the disease occurred in consequence. The next victim in the range was in the house to his right. Mr. McDougal, a young Scotch barrister, came up from Liguan, where he had been on a visit, caught the disease and died. Nobody else in that house (Sir Michael McTurk’s) became affected. Next, his (Dr. Fraser) turn came in the centre; he had had no inter- course with either parties, and was to windward of me. His wife was not aware of his doctrine of contagion, or did not regard it, and was unremittingly attentive; his son was there; his servants did not fly away; he recovered, and nobody else in his house sickened of the disease afterwards; and his neighbour opposite, Dr. Smith, who at- tended all the three cases, never was attacked. Dr. Fraser goes on to state something more tangible than his hypothetical cases. He states that “ every member of the medical profession, who from their avoca- tions were necessarily exposed to the infection, have been attacked and undergone a most severe fit of sickness ; none of them, however, have died.” This is fiction, except the last portion of the sentence. The medical men were extremely harrassed, but there was not much actual sickness of any kind among them ; indeed, if we except Dr. McNish, who I believe was laid up for a time with hemoptysis, and Dr. Smith, who was laid up for three months from dry belly ache, during the period referred to by Dr. Fraser, I question much if the medical men generally were ever freer from sickness. The two cases of yellow fever in town were Dr. Fraser and myself. I M 4 can