From Wilmington, N. C.
We learn from Dr. Henry Stone, of Mississippi, who visited Wilmington to offer his professional aid to the citizens, and who has recent advices from the city, that the number of cases of fever is decidedly on the decrease. There are fifteen or sixteen physicians now on duty there; seven from Charleston, one Naval surgeon, and eight of the town practitioners, who have been down and recovered. Dr. E. A. Anderson is just up from an attack. In addition, a large hospital has been opened, where a large number of the poorer classes are accommodated, thereby diminishing the number of out-door patients, and the labor of the physicians in a proportionate degree. Few new cases are occurring, probably owing to the want of material, and large numbers of those on hand are recovering. The people of Petersburg, Richmond, and the surrounding country, responded most liberally to the call for provisions, and relieved the distress that at one time prevailed, for there was actual starvation staring them in the face. After War and Pestilence had done their work, but little would have been left for the third sister to do.The deaths on the 21st numbered 15. It will never be accurately known how many have died, as the disease had prevailed several weeks before it was pronounced yellow fever and afterwards, oven, the physicians made no official reports of deaths. The number can only be approximated by reference to the records of the places of interment. During his stay there it was impossible to procure labor enough to give the bodies a decent burial, and many remained unburied all night, exposed to the winds of Heaven, as was the case in Richmond at one time when the military hospitals were crowded, neither grave-diggers or coffins could be had.
In epidemics, generally, it has been remarked that, while the outward manifestations of severity may be the same in all their stages, yet the mortality is greater during the first few weeks and towards their termination. This is strikingly the case with yellow fever. The disease will be arrested only by a heavy black frost, cold weather always aggravating individual cases, probably on account of the difficulty in regulating the temperature of the sick chamber and consequent danger of relapse.
The total number of cases treated so far will probably reach 2,200, of which at least 400 have died, giving a mortality of a little over 20 per cent; quite small compared with that of the Norfolk epidemic of 1855, when 54 died in every hundred.
In connection with this epidemic, it is singular to notice that for many years back there have been forty or fifty turpentine distilleries in operation constantly, whereas this summer they were all discontinued. The disease had not appeared there for forty years. Would it have done so this year if the atmosphere had been thoroughly impregnated with the terebinthine vapors? It is commonly believed that it spread from cases imported late in July by the Kate, but the first two or three of her crew died in the city several weeks before others of a similar nature were noticed. If it was imported, why has it not appeared in other cities — Mobile and New Orleans — where vessels have arrived with fever on beard? Several persons who contracted the disease there were brought here and to other places in the interior and died. Yet it was not communicated.
