I have asserted, in the introduction to the history of this fever, that I believed it to have been generated in our city; I shall now deliver my reasons for that belief.
1. The yellow fever in the West-Indies, and in all other countries where it is endemic, is the offspring of vegetable putrefaction. Heat, exercise, and intemperance in drinking (says Dr. Lind) _dispose_ to this fever in hot climates, but they do not produce it without the concurrence of a remote cause. This remote cause exists at all times, in some spots of the islands, but in other parts even of the same islands, where there are no marsh exhalations, the disease is unknown. I shall not waste a moment in inquiring into the truth of Dr. Warren's account of the origin of this fever. It is fully refuted by Dr. Hillary, and it is treated as chimerical by Dr. Lind. They have very limited ideas of the history of this fever who suppose it to be peculiar to the East or West-Indies. It was admitted to have been generated in Cadiz after a hot and dry summer in 1764, and in Pensacola in 1765[62]. The tertian fever of Minorca, when it attacked Englishmen, put on the usual symptoms of the yellow fever[63]. In short, this disease appears, according to Dr. Lind, in all the southern parts of Europe, after hot and dry weather[64].
[62] Lind on the Diseases of Hot Climates, p. 36 and 124.
2. The same causes (under like circumstances) must always produce the same effects. There is nothing in the air of the West-Indies, above other hot countries, which disposes it to produce a yellow fever. Similar degrees of heat, acting upon dead and moist vegetable matters, are capable of producing it, together with all its various modifications, in every part of the world. In support of this opinion, I shall transcribe part of a letter from Dr. Miller, formerly of the Delaware state, and now of New-York.
"Since the middle of last July we have had a bilious colic epidemic in this neighbourhood, which exhibits phænomena very singular in this climate; and, so far as I am informed, unprecedented in the medical records, or popular traditions of this country. To avoid unnecessary details it will suffice at present to observe, that the disease, on this occasion, has assumed, not only all the essential characters, but likewise all the violence, obstinacy, and malignity described by the East and West-Indian practitioners. If any difference can be observed it seems here to manifest higher degrees of stubbornness and malignity than we usually meet in the histories of tropical writers. In the course of the disease, not only extreme constipation, frequent vomiting, and the most excruciating pains of the bowels and limbs, harass the unhappy patient; but to these succeed paralysis, convulsions, &c. and almost always uncommon muscular debility, oppression of the præcordia, &c. are the consequence of a severe attack. Bile discharged in enormous quantities constantly assumes the most corrupted and acrimonious appearances, commonly æruginous in a very high degree, and sometimes quite atrabilious.