Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/44

30 "Famine, therefore, though a frequent precedent and a powerful adjunct, is only an indirect cause of the fever as we find it on shipboard and in our hospitals; but we must continue to be burdened with it so long as poverty-stricken emigrants are admitted into the transport-ships in such great numbers, with food so insufficient in quantity and quality, and with such a total absence of sanitary police during the voyage.

From what has been said, it will be readily inferred that in the prevention of typhus fever pure air possesses great value. Too much reliance cannot be placed upon it, either for this purpose or for subduing the intensity or arresting the progress of the disease. Of its efficacy as a remedial agent, a striking instance among many others that might be mentioned occurred at the New York Quarantine Hospital, under my immediate notice, during my connection with the State Emigrant Commission. A new building was erected on the summit of a hill within the enclosure, into which some forty patients were conveyed from the other overcrowded buildings. These had been kept in as good condition as possible as respects both cleanliness and ventilation. Though there were no specific provisions for the latter, yet the influence of the fresh atmosphere of the new building upon the patients was most decided and immediate; a load seemed to be lifted off them, and several, who, it was feared, would die, began at once to improve and rapidly recover.

"In the month of August, 1837, a number of ships with emigrant passengers arrived at Perth Amboy, from Liverpool and other ports, on board of some of which ship-fever prevailed. There was no hospital or other accommodations in the town in which the sick could be placed, and no person would admit them into private dwellings, fearing infection; at the same time, they could not be left on board the ships. An arrangement was made to land the sick passengers and place them in an open wood, adjacent to a large spring of water, about a mile and a half from town. Rough shanties, floored with boards and covered with sails, were erected, and thirty-six patients were landed in boats, as near the spring as possible, and carried in wagons to the encampment (as it was called), under the influence of a hot August sun. Of the thirty-six, twelve were insensible, in the last stage of fever,