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6/25/1873: Dr. Mudd Writes about Epidemics & Infection
Source: Baltimore Sun, June 25, 1873
Dr. Mudd continued to study and write about yellow fever after he was released from Fort Jefferson. It was not an academic exercise. Yellow fever, cholera, typhoid fever, malaria, and similar diseases continued to plague the population during his lifetime. Almost every issue of the Baltimore Sun and other southern newspapers carried current stories about these diseases. Only a few days before Dr. Mudd’s article appeared in the Baltimore Sun, the Sun printed a story about the steamship Liberty, the same ship which had carried Dr. Mudd home from Fort Jefferson in 1869. The Liberty was being held in quarantine in Baltimore harbor because passengers were sick with yellow fever.
Since scientists had not yet discovered the causes of these diseases, and therefore their effective treatment, there was, as Dr. Mudd says “a wonderful diversity of opinion” concerning their treatment.
Dr. Mudd’s article was only one of many contributed to the newspapers by concerned physicians and scientists on the cause and prevention of these diseases. It would be almost two decades after Dr. Mudd’s death in 1883 that Dr. Walter Reed and his fellow researchers would show that yellow fever was transmitted by infected mosquitoes. After that discovery, yellow fever was able to be controlled by mosquito eradication programs. In 1937, Max Theiler discovered a yellow fever vaccine, for which he received the Nobel Prize.
Epidemics and Infection
A Distinctive Line of Difference Between Contagion and Infection Drawn, and the Means of Preventing Epidemics of Infection.
By Dr. Samuel A. Mudd.
Nature is made up of like causes, producing similar effects. The diseases known as contagious producing contagious of their kind, and the poison of infectious producing infectious of their kind. They are as distinct from each other in their pathological character as the different species and variety of animals, and bear no relation, except as to their medium, in evolving cause and extension. The human or animal system evolves the germ directly in contagions, and disease is communicable by contact with the disease. But in the case of infections, no germ is evolved from the disease, therefore no number of sick - not even ten thousand confined to one apartment - is sufficient directly to generate its poison and consequent extension. Owing to this fact the efforts of physicians have been vain to discover a method of inoculating typhoid fever, yellow fever, cholera, etc.
An example tending in proof of what I have alleged, is furnished by the fact that all physicians agree as to the contagiousness of small-pox and measles, when a wonderful diversity of opinion exists in regard to typhoid fever and yellow fever. This diversity is due in the first place to education and secondly, to treating these diseases of infection in different localities at the same time without an endeavor to separate the cause from the effect or considering the point of origin.
All medical writers, in speaking of infections, use the word infectious as applied to disease. Infectious is proper when applied to matter, but no greater mistake can be made when applied to the diseased body, for it implies that the disease is capable of generating its cause, which is as impossible as that a burn from a hot iron should produce the heated metal, or salvation produce the globule of mercury. There is then no such thing as an infectious disease, and isolation from one to ten thousand is its plainest proof. Infected disease seems to be most proper and expressive of the true pathological condition.
Infection spreads from bed to bed that have been for a length of time exposed to the action of human effluvia, and not from local miasma or from individual to individual, as, no doubt, a large majority of the public and profession suppose. The error regarding the origin of the diseases, particularly that of yellow fever, has led, within my own knowledge, to serious, fatal consequences, for had the very worthy surgeon of the post at the Dry Tortugas, in 1867, understood whence the poison arose, and the matter of its augmentation, we would have been spared the spread of the fever and the sacrifice of his own and many other valuable lives by removing at once from the fort the company of soldiers and all its property, in which the disease first made its appearance, and pointed out the presence of the poison. The surgeon caused the company to be removed from the quarters where the disease began, believing that it was caused by emanations from the unfinished moat in front, and ordered the portholes to be closed to prevent the admission of the supposed deadly miasma within the fort. The company, however, was quartered, with all its property, bedding, blankets, etc., in the southeasterly portion of the fort, which, instead of cutting short the fever, caused its more rapid spread through the garrison and prisoners by the prevailing southeast wind.
We learn from this that had the surgeon removed only the men, and left the property behind, the disease would have been checked, for then only those who went in these quarters would be liable to attack, and the disease, instead of manifesting an epidemic form, would appear accidental or sporadic. And had he removed all the beds and property of the company from the fort, and had the quarters swept and washed, and clean beds and bedding supplied, no more cases would have resulted.
A knowledge of the nature of infection is invaluable to every government - general or municipal - to prisons or boarding schools, and particularly to every master of a ship, for whenever the bedding and apartments are kept clean by soap and water, and the regulation enforced of not admitting anything aboard ship in the shape of clothing but what has been recently washed and thoroughly dried, no fear can be entertained of the breaking out of cholera, yellow fever, typhoid or typhus fever etc., on a reasonable voyage. The master could, under these circumstances, convert his ship into a cholera or yellow fever hospital, transport the sick across the ocean, enter port without quarantine, and establish his sick in clean, comfortable quarters in the midst of a populous city without endangering the safety of his crew or the inhabitants of the city.
To give an illustration of infection, when an article of clothing is immersed in a solution of any kind the nature of the solution is imparted, as plainly perceived by our senses in the very colors of silks, cloths, etc., some answering well the effect of contagion - being indelible, and others answering to infection, fading - rendering immunity only for short time. So the human system, when under the influence or exposed to the fumes of mercury, arsenic, lead, etc., the peculiar character of the agent is plainly manifest to the senses. In is then only when the cause is hidden that uncertainty rules. But as the globule or crystal of mercury, arsenic, lead, etc., is not developed by their action upon the system, no fear is entertained by nurses or attendants of contracting the malady. Why, then, cannot we arrive at the nature of an agent, when its effects are similar, though its chemical formula be unknown.
Undoubted proofs from experience and observation have taught me that the germ of all spreading infections common to mankind resides in human effluvia, and man is the victim of his own neglect. When once this germ is generated it reacts or ferments with all such matter whenever it comes in contact, under favorable conditions of moisture and temperature. This is not more improbable than the germ that is contained in the egg of the chicken, turkey, hawk, crow, buzzard, etc., and generated by a longer or shorter duration of a certain continuous heat. The contents of all these eggs are very similar or the same in appearance. Then there is another genus that are hatched entirely through solar and atmospheric influence, namely turtles, snakes, lizard, frogs and insects. So we perceive, after all, that the generation of the germ depends entirely upon the quality of the heat, for we know full well that the eggs of the turkey, chicken, etc., will not hatch in the sand with the alternations of heat and cold, caused through the operation of day and night; and vice versa, the turtle, snake, etc., under the continuous heat of the chicken or turkey. Now for the practical results. Let us destroy the egg and we destroy the germ. Destroy the effluvia and we prevent the generation of the germs or poison which occasions the disease. An epidemic of infection, under these circumstances, can no more arise and extend than a fire burn without fuel. Bear in mind that contagion is the parent of the disease, whereas poison only is the result of a disease of infection, as fire is the parent of a burn, mercury the parent of salivation, and strychnia the parent of convulsions and death.
The yellow fever is eminently a disease of infection, and belongs to the classes of diseases known as typhus and typhoid fevers, and is generated from human effluvia under the peculiar atmosphere of ships in certain latitudes instead of being the product of miasma or emanations from swamps, marshes and vegetable decomposition. The poison that gives rise to the intermittent and remittent fevers, (chills and fever and billious fever) agreeable to all the evidence we have concerning it, does not act as a ferment upon human effluvia. We cannot, therefore, transport its poison. But, on the contrary, we can transport the poison of yellow fever thousands of miles, and under favorable atmosphere and temperature light up a similar epidemic. A wonderful and important difference!
A Distinctive Line of Difference Between Contagion and Infection Drawn, and the Means of Preventing Epidemics of Infection.
By Dr. Samuel A. Mudd.
Nature is made up of like causes, producing similar effects. The diseases known as contagious producing contagious of their kind, and the poison of infectious producing infectious of their kind. They are as distinct from each other in their pathological character as the different species and variety of animals, and bear no relation, except as to their medium, in evolving cause and extension. The human or animal system evolves the germ directly in contagions, and disease is communicable by contact with the disease. But in the case of infections, no germ is evolved from the disease, therefore no number of sick - not even ten thousand confined to one apartment - is sufficient directly to generate its poison and consequent extension. Owing to this fact the efforts of physicians have been vain to discover a method of inoculating typhoid fever, yellow fever, cholera, etc.
An example tending in proof of what I have alleged, is furnished by the fact that all physicians agree as to the contagiousness of small-pox and measles, when a wonderful diversity of opinion exists in regard to typhoid fever and yellow fever. This diversity is due in the first place to education and secondly, to treating these diseases of infection in different localities at the same time without an endeavor to separate the cause from the effect or considering the point of origin.
All medical writers, in speaking of infections, use the word infectious as applied to disease. Infectious is proper when applied to matter, but no greater mistake can be made when applied to the diseased body, for it implies that the disease is capable of generating its cause, which is as impossible as that a burn from a hot iron should produce the heated metal, or salvation produce the globule of mercury. There is then no such thing as an infectious disease, and isolation from one to ten thousand is its plainest proof. Infected disease seems to be most proper and expressive of the true pathological condition.
Infection spreads from bed to bed that have been for a length of time exposed to the action of human effluvia, and not from local miasma or from individual to individual, as, no doubt, a large majority of the public and profession suppose. The error regarding the origin of the diseases, particularly that of yellow fever, has led, within my own knowledge, to serious, fatal consequences, for had the very worthy surgeon of the post at the Dry Tortugas, in 1867, understood whence the poison arose, and the matter of its augmentation, we would have been spared the spread of the fever and the sacrifice of his own and many other valuable lives by removing at once from the fort the company of soldiers and all its property, in which the disease first made its appearance, and pointed out the presence of the poison. The surgeon caused the company to be removed from the quarters where the disease began, believing that it was caused by emanations from the unfinished moat in front, and ordered the portholes to be closed to prevent the admission of the supposed deadly miasma within the fort. The company, however, was quartered, with all its property, bedding, blankets, etc., in the southeasterly portion of the fort, which, instead of cutting short the fever, caused its more rapid spread through the garrison and prisoners by the prevailing southeast wind.
We learn from this that had the surgeon removed only the men, and left the property behind, the disease would have been checked, for then only those who went in these quarters would be liable to attack, and the disease, instead of manifesting an epidemic form, would appear accidental or sporadic. And had he removed all the beds and property of the company from the fort, and had the quarters swept and washed, and clean beds and bedding supplied, no more cases would have resulted.
A knowledge of the nature of infection is invaluable to every government - general or municipal - to prisons or boarding schools, and particularly to every master of a ship, for whenever the bedding and apartments are kept clean by soap and water, and the regulation enforced of not admitting anything aboard ship in the shape of clothing but what has been recently washed and thoroughly dried, no fear can be entertained of the breaking out of cholera, yellow fever, typhoid or typhus fever etc., on a reasonable voyage. The master could, under these circumstances, convert his ship into a cholera or yellow fever hospital, transport the sick across the ocean, enter port without quarantine, and establish his sick in clean, comfortable quarters in the midst of a populous city without endangering the safety of his crew or the inhabitants of the city.
To give an illustration of infection, when an article of clothing is immersed in a solution of any kind the nature of the solution is imparted, as plainly perceived by our senses in the very colors of silks, cloths, etc., some answering well the effect of contagion - being indelible, and others answering to infection, fading - rendering immunity only for short time. So the human system, when under the influence or exposed to the fumes of mercury, arsenic, lead, etc., the peculiar character of the agent is plainly manifest to the senses. In is then only when the cause is hidden that uncertainty rules. But as the globule or crystal of mercury, arsenic, lead, etc., is not developed by their action upon the system, no fear is entertained by nurses or attendants of contracting the malady. Why, then, cannot we arrive at the nature of an agent, when its effects are similar, though its chemical formula be unknown.
Undoubted proofs from experience and observation have taught me that the germ of all spreading infections common to mankind resides in human effluvia, and man is the victim of his own neglect. When once this germ is generated it reacts or ferments with all such matter whenever it comes in contact, under favorable conditions of moisture and temperature. This is not more improbable than the germ that is contained in the egg of the chicken, turkey, hawk, crow, buzzard, etc., and generated by a longer or shorter duration of a certain continuous heat. The contents of all these eggs are very similar or the same in appearance. Then there is another genus that are hatched entirely through solar and atmospheric influence, namely turtles, snakes, lizard, frogs and insects. So we perceive, after all, that the generation of the germ depends entirely upon the quality of the heat, for we know full well that the eggs of the turkey, chicken, etc., will not hatch in the sand with the alternations of heat and cold, caused through the operation of day and night; and vice versa, the turtle, snake, etc., under the continuous heat of the chicken or turkey. Now for the practical results. Let us destroy the egg and we destroy the germ. Destroy the effluvia and we prevent the generation of the germs or poison which occasions the disease. An epidemic of infection, under these circumstances, can no more arise and extend than a fire burn without fuel. Bear in mind that contagion is the parent of the disease, whereas poison only is the result of a disease of infection, as fire is the parent of a burn, mercury the parent of salivation, and strychnia the parent of convulsions and death.
The yellow fever is eminently a disease of infection, and belongs to the classes of diseases known as typhus and typhoid fevers, and is generated from human effluvia under the peculiar atmosphere of ships in certain latitudes instead of being the product of miasma or emanations from swamps, marshes and vegetable decomposition. The poison that gives rise to the intermittent and remittent fevers, (chills and fever and billious fever) agreeable to all the evidence we have concerning it, does not act as a ferment upon human effluvia. We cannot, therefore, transport its poison. But, on the contrary, we can transport the poison of yellow fever thousands of miles, and under favorable atmosphere and temperature light up a similar epidemic. A wonderful and important difference!
Copyright © 2012 Robert Summers. All rights reserved.
