Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/258

 jack,” particularly, spread terror to the populace. Matthew Carey's account of an epidemic of this disease in 1793 in Philadelphia, which at that time was the center of medical knowledge in the United States, gives a picture which was duplicated in other cities, especially of the south, as late as the beginning of the twentieth century. Carey writes: {{quote|Most of those who could by any means make it convenient, fled from the city. Of those who remained, many shut themselves up in their houses, being afraid to walk the streets. The smoke of tobacco being regarded as a preventive, many persons even women and small boys, had segars almost constantly in their mouths. Others, placing full confidence in garlic, chewed it almost the whole day; some kept it in their pockets and shoes. Many were afraid to allow the barbers or hair-dressers to come near them having shaved the dead, and many having engaged as bleeders. Some who carried their caution pretty far, bought lancets for themselves, not daring to allow themselves to be bled with lancets of the bleeders. Many houses were scarcely a moment in the day, free from the smell of gunpowder, burned tobacco, nitre, sprinkled vinegar, etc. Some of the Churches were almost deserted, and others wholly closed. The coffee-house was shut up, as was the city library, and most of the public offices—three, out of the four, daily papers were discontinued, as were some of the others. Many devoted no small portion of their time to purifying, securing, and whitewashing their rooms. Those who ventured abroad, had handkerchiefs or sponges, impregnated with vinegar or camphor, at their noses, or smelling-bottles full of thieves vinegar. [Thieves' vinegar, or the vinegar of the four thieves, was a preparation the composition of which was said to have been discovered by four young men during the plague at Marseilles. It was said to have rendered them immune from the disease and enabled them to rob the sick while pretending to serve as nurses]. Others carried pieces of tarred rope in their hands or pockets, or camphor bags tied round their necks. The corpses of the most respectable citizens, even of those who had not died of the epidemic, were carried to the grave on the shafts of a chair, the horse driven by a negro, unattended by a friend or relation, and without any sort of ceremony. People uniformly and hastily shifted their course at the sight of a hearse coming towards them. Many never walked on the footpath, but went into the middle of the street, to avoid being infected in passing houses wherein people had died. Acquaintances and friends avoided each other in the streets, and only signified their regard by a cold nod. The old custom of shaking hands, fell into such general disuse, that many shrunk back with affright at even the offer of the hand. A person with crape or any appearance of mourning, was shunned like a leper, and many valued themselves highly on the skill and address with which they got to windward of every person whom they met. {{nop}} {{rule}}{{smallrefs}}