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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
In October 1854, a Georgia clergyman wrote to his son a circumstantial account of a death in the family. The deceased, a younger brother of the clergyman's wife, had contracted yellow fever and died in his twenty-ninth year. The letter-writer reports every detail he can remember:
We found your uncle in the shed room off the parlor pulseless, his hands blackened, the blood settling under the nails, perfectly calm and conscious when roused, then falling into sleep. He turned over and gave me his hand, saying, “What do you think of my case?” He had taken much quinine, and was then taking brandy at intervals; his hands and feet rubbed with brandy and pepper, and blisters applied on legs, thighs, stomach, breast, and arms and back of neck. Every effort made to bring on reaction. Your dear mother rubbed his hands and arms incessantly, others his feet.
A version of this essay was delivered as the Kenneth B. Murdock Memorial Lecture at Leverett House, Harvard University, March 8, 1978.
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