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Domestic News
August 26, 1799
Jenks's Portland Gazette
Portland, Cumberland County, Maine
What is this article about?
An article from the New York Spectator explains that yellow fever arises from corruption in cellars of houses or ships, not from person-to-person contagion, and urges thorough cleaning of ships to prevent it.
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From the New York Spectator
True Idea of the Poison of Yellow Fever
IF excrementitious and perishable things corrupt in the cellars of a house or store in either of the wards of the city of New York, it is allowed on all hands, that the exciting cause of malignant fever may be produced. This has happened a thousand times in New York and in every city in America. Now, this is not the hold of a ship, its cellar, in which such things as are usually put into cellars on shore, are stored--why should not the cellars of ships become foul and pestilential like other cellars? If people go down into poisonous cellars, whether on ship-board or on shore it is very much like descending into wells, vats and cisterns, filled with venomous and deadly air. Human beings are frequently killed by going into all of these holds of abomination and nastiness. But the distemper produced is not communicable from man to man in any of these cases. A person may inhale pestilence or get a blast of infection from any of those sources of mischief and poison; but the distemper stops there and is not communicable to another person by morbid secretion of contagious matter, but merely thro the agency of a common corruption or putrefaction. Purify your ships, then, which are among manufactories of pestilence, and you will have less alarm about Imported Yellow Fever. But do not think that they are clean by being merely pumped out: Smoked out--No such thing. Ships must be cleaned as houses are cleaned; every woman knows how that is done.
True Idea of the Poison of Yellow Fever
IF excrementitious and perishable things corrupt in the cellars of a house or store in either of the wards of the city of New York, it is allowed on all hands, that the exciting cause of malignant fever may be produced. This has happened a thousand times in New York and in every city in America. Now, this is not the hold of a ship, its cellar, in which such things as are usually put into cellars on shore, are stored--why should not the cellars of ships become foul and pestilential like other cellars? If people go down into poisonous cellars, whether on ship-board or on shore it is very much like descending into wells, vats and cisterns, filled with venomous and deadly air. Human beings are frequently killed by going into all of these holds of abomination and nastiness. But the distemper produced is not communicable from man to man in any of these cases. A person may inhale pestilence or get a blast of infection from any of those sources of mischief and poison; but the distemper stops there and is not communicable to another person by morbid secretion of contagious matter, but merely thro the agency of a common corruption or putrefaction. Purify your ships, then, which are among manufactories of pestilence, and you will have less alarm about Imported Yellow Fever. But do not think that they are clean by being merely pumped out: Smoked out--No such thing. Ships must be cleaned as houses are cleaned; every woman knows how that is done.
What sub-type of article is it?
Disease Or Epidemic
What keywords are associated?
Yellow Fever
Poison
Cellars
Ships
Pestilence
New York
Where did it happen?
New York
Domestic News Details
Primary Location
New York
Event Details
The article argues that yellow fever is caused by corruption and putrefaction in cellars of houses and ships, similar to poisonous air in wells or vats, leading to non-communicable distemper from inhalation but not person-to-person. It advises purifying ships thoroughly, beyond pumping or smoking, like cleaning houses, to reduce fears of imported yellow fever.