9208. YELLOW FEVER, Infectious.—
On the question whether the yellow fever is
infectious or endemic, the medical faculty is
divided into two parties, and it certainly is
not the office of the public functionary to denounce
either party as Dr. Rush proposes. Yet,
so far as they are called on to act, they must
form for themselves an opinion to act on. In
the early history of the disease, I did suppose
it to be infectious. Not reading any of the
party papers on either side, I continued in this
supposition until the fever at Alexandria
brought facts under my own eye, as it were,
proving it could not be communicated but in a
local atmosphere, pretty exactly circumscribed.
With the composition of this atmosphere we
are unacquainted. We know only that it is
generated near the water side, in close built
cities, under warm climates. According to the
rules of philosophizing when one sufficient
cause for an effect is known, it is not within
the economy of nature to employ two. If local
atmosphere suffices to produce the fever, miasmata
from a human subject are not necessary
and probably do not enter into the cause. Still,
it is not within my province to decide the question;
but as it may be within yours to require
the performance of quarantine or not, I execute
a private duty in submitting Dr. Rush's letter
to your consideration.—
To Governor Page.
Ford ed., viii, 316.
(M.
1804)
