A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever / With an Appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720

Chapter 8: PART SECOND.

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About This Book

The work surveys historical outbreaks of the true plague, tracing recorded devastations and examining theories about origins, climatic and moral influences, and the nature of contagion. It analyzes symptoms and medical histories, considers evidence and debate over transmissibility, and reviews recommended measures for prevention and clinical management. A second part addresses yellow fever with a comparative account of symptoms and causes, contested views on contagion, recommended preventive practices and treatments, and a selection of notable case reports. An appendix gathers classical and later plague narratives and practitioners’ responses to queries, illustrating social effects and public-health responses.

PART SECOND.

Of the Yellow Fever.

We now come to treat of a disease, less fatal indeed than the Asiatic plague, but yet so deadly in its nature in the Western World, that it has of late been confounded with the former, and attempts made to prove that they are both to be considered only as degrees of the same disease, and that both have been recorded by historians indiscriminately under the common appellation of plague or pestilence. To investigate this matter candidly, and to show that there is a real and essential difference between the two, as far as we can credit testimonies drawn from the most respectable writers, shall be the work of the following part of this treatise.