From LeBeuf's historical notes on the subject we find that, appearing at Boston in 1798, at New York in 1789, at Philadelphia in 1699, at Baltimore in 1819, at New Orleans in 1701, and at many other points along the coast, and spreading to our interior, low-lying towns, yellow fever carried death and terror far and wide.
Considered at first a visitation of Providence, it was simply submitted to and all efforts were directed solely toward healing the sick. Considered later as a possibly preventable malady, it was combated by fumigation of all sorts, but with no apparent result; and finally that abomination of desolation, the quarantine of non-intercourse, was set up, doing far more damage than good. While checking perhaps in some slight measure of doubtful value the spread of the disease, it checked fatally the life-giving stream of commerce all through the south, while business went freely on