Yellow fever disease history - saved by mercury?

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<http://www.geocities.com/bobarnebeck/history.html>

Exerpt:

" Rush also accurately identified the varieties and stages of yellow fever. In

some victims the virus has little effect; others have disturbing symptoms that

last only a few days; and others either get the fever in full force immediately

and die almost as if poisoned or have a horrible relapse on the third or fourth

day of the fever and are often dead a few days later. From society's experience

with smallpox, it was common in that day to prepare the body for disease. In the

process of inoculation, patients were isolated, purged and put on a special

diet, and then exposed to smallpox in hopes that they would, under constant

care, have the disease lightly and then remain immune to it for the rest of

their lives. Using the same thinking, Rush urged people to take purges and be

bled at the slightest onset of illness. It was this, usually, self medication of

strong purges that alarmed other doctors. Estimates of the number of dead during

this epidemic range from 3,000 to 5,000. The official total was 3,881. Very few

were observed by doctors and there were no scientific accounts of their manner

of dying. There were a few autopsies which by in large illuminated the obvious,

the stomach was quite overwhelmed. However, two observations grabbed hold of the

city's imagination. The first was that the appearance of black vomit invariably

meant the patient would die. The second was that patients who evidenced ptyalism

or severe salivation all recovered. This ptyalism was caused by what we now call

mercury poisoning, as mineral mercury is the primary ingredient of calomel, a

medicine first developed in the 16th century. In 1793 it was not considered a

poison and when oral doses didn't bring on salivation, doctors rubbed mercury

ointments on the patient's gums. "

Okay, this is also REALLY interesting (at least to me):

" This demeaning of the yellow fever victim was doubly demoralizing because

unlike in most infectious diseases the principal victims were not the elderly

and children. The first group recognized as prone to get it were males between

the ages of 15 and 40. Thus many heads of family were victimized. Soon enough,

the community realized that the disease was not confined to any one age group or

sex. Even an early hope that blacks were exempt was soon dashed. Finally, while

most diseases spread in areas of filth among people who are impoverished, the

yellow fever mosquito could thrive among the hallmarks of cleanliness -- the

full water cistern in back and the spacious houses of the rich. Profiling of the

victims of yellow fever highlights the power of the disease. Today, social

historians commonly use it as a marker of the extent of poverty in cities like

Philadelphia, showing with the statistics that the poor in crowded alleys were

its principal victims. At the time, not a few grabbed onto the same statistics

with the same, for the rich, hopeful conclusions, but the general gloom about

the disease spread because it was clear throughout that no one was exempt. Even

Powel, a former mayor, one of the city's richest men, with access to

country homes and personal round the clock attendance of physicians, fell a

victim to the fever. "

I wonder if the yellow fever epidemic had anything to do with the potash and

pearlash that was invented in 1790. Pearlash was used in baking. Perhaps there

were bad batches out there and that's why they thought it was contagious. I

have a hard time believing that mosquitos were to blame, I am sure they could

have been found with bad blood from people but don't know about it being the

other way around.