Daily National Intelligencer

ON THE YELLOW FEVER.

Messrs. Gales & Seaton:

I presume that the following history of the Yellow Fever, by Baron Humboldt, (the most philosophical of travellers,) will be acceptable. It is translated from his Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne, published in Paris, 1811. Livre v. chap. 12.

Washington City, Oct. 4.

We shall now speak of the Epidemic which prevails on the eastern coasts of New Spain, and which, during a great part of the year, embarrasses, not only the commerce with Europe, but also the interior communications between the coast (le littoral) and the plane (plateau) of Ahuac. The port of Vera Cruz is considered as the principal seat of the yellow fever, (vomito prieto ou negro.) Thousands of Europeans, landing on the coasts of Mexico in the period of excessive heat, perish, victims of this cruel epidemic. Some masters of vessels prefer arriving at Vera Cruz in the beginning of winter, when the tempests from the north begin to rage, rather than to expose themselves to the loss of the greatest part of their crews by the vomito, and to suffer, on their return to Europe, a long quarantine. These circumstances have frequently a sensible influence on the supply of the city of Mexico, and on the price of Merchandise. This (fleau) evil, of yellow fever, has yet more important consequences relative to the commerce of the interior: the mines are without iron, steel, and mercury, when the communications between Xalapa and Vera Cruz are interrupted. We have before observed that the commerce of the provinces is carried on by caravans of mules: but the muleteers, as well as the merchants, who inhabit the cool and temperate regions of New Spain, dread a descent to the coasts while the vomito reigns at Vera Cruz.

In proportion as the commerce of this port has increased, and as Mexico has felt the necessity of a more active communication with Europe, the disadvantages arising from the insalubrity of the shore have been more severely felt. This epidemic, which reigned in 1801 and 1802, excited a political question which had not been agitated with the same vivacity in 1752, or at earlier periods, when the yellow fever made still more frightful ravages. Memoirs have been addressed to the government to discuss the problem, whether it would be best to destroy (raser) the city of Vera Cruz and to compel the inhabitants to establish themselves at Xalapa, or at some other port of the Cordillere, or to try new means of making the port more healthful. The latter appeared preferable, the fortifications having cost more than fifty million dollars, and the port, bad as it is, being the only one on the eastern coast which offers any security to ships of war. Two parties were formed in the country, one of which wished the destruction, the other the aggrandisement of Vera Cruz. Though the government appeared for some time to lean to the first of these parties, it is probable that this great question, in which the property of sixteen thousand individuals, and of a great number of families powerful by their wealth is endangered, will be, from time to time, suspended and renewed, without being ever terminated. In my passage through Vera Cruz, I observed the Cabildo undertaking the construction of a new theatre, while, in the city of Mexico, the assessor of the Viceroy was composing a long memorial to prove the necessity of destroying the city, as the focus of a pestilential malady.

We have seen that, in New Spain, as in the United States, the yellow fever attacks, not only the health of the inhabitants, but that it injures their fortunes, either by the stagnation of the commerce of the interior or by the embarrassments of exchange with foreigners. Hence every thing relative to this (fleau) evil is interesting, as well to the statesman as to the philosophic observer. The insalubrity of the coasts, which injures commerce, facilitates the military defence of the country against an European enemy; and, to finish the political picture of New Spain it remains for us to examine the nature of the evil which causes the residence at Vera Cruz to be so greatly dreaded by the inhabitants of cool and temperate regions. I will not here undertake a nosographic description of the vomito prieto. I will limit myself to an indication of the most interesting facts, distinguishing carefully the incontestible results of observation from every thing which belongs to the domain of physiological conjectures.

The typhus, which the Spaniards designate by the name of vomito prieto, black vomit, has reigned, during a very long period, between the mouth of the Rio Antigua and the actual port of Vera Cruz. The Abbe Clavigero, and other writers, affirm that this malady first appeared in 1725. We know no foundation for an assertion so contrary to the traditions preserved among the inhabitants of Vera Cruz. No ancient document has informed us of the first appearance of this deadly evil; for, in all the hot regions of equinoctial America, where termites and other destructive insects abound, it is very uncommon to find documents of an older date than fifty or sixty years. It is also believed, at Mexico and Vera Cruz, that the ancient city, which is now a village, known by the name of la Antigua, was abandoned, at the close of the sixteenth century, on account of the diseases which there swept away (moissennoint) the Europeans.

A long time before the arrival of Cortez, an epidemic sickness had reigned in New-Spain, which the natives call matlazahuatl, and which some authors have confounded with the vomito, or yellow fever. This pestilence is, probably, the same as that which, in the eleventh century compelled the Tolteques to continue their migrations to the south It made great havoc among the Mexicans in 1545-1576--1737-1761-1762, yet it has two characters which distinguish it, essentially, from the vomito of Vera Cruz; it attacks, almost exclusively, the indigenes, or coppered race (rase cuivree) and it rages in the interior of the country, on the central plane, at twelve or thirteen hundred toises (a mile and a half) above the level of the sea. It is true that the Indians of the valley of Mexico, who in 1761. perished by thousands, victims of the matlazahuatl. discharged blood by the nose and the mouth; but these bleedings are frequent under the tropics, in regular bilious fever, (fièvres ataciques bilieuses.) They were equally noticed in the epidemic malady which, in 1759, spread through all south America, from Potosi and Oruro, to Quito and Popayan, which, according to the incomplete description of D'Ulloa, was a typhus peculiar to the high regions of the Cordilleras.