Summary Of Cartwright's Prevention Of Yellow Fever

In the midst of the 1853 yellow fever epidemic, physician Samuel A. Cartwright published “Prevention of Yellow Fever” in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal. After introducing the predominant theories of disease transmission, contagionism and non-contagionism, Cartwright characterizes these ideologies as groundless “relics of medieval science … not derived from nature or the observation of facts” (292). Cartwright notes that the contagionists’ emphasis on strict quarantines had historically stifled trade and caused inflation, predisposing the weakened populace to illness. Conversely, the noncontagionists’ admittance of all ill immigrants into the community, negated the benefits of their advocation for sanitary measures (Cartwright
He expounds upon the last point by referencing the poor white, Irish immigrants forced to take jobs laboring in the hot sun of New Orleans. Claiming that “nature scorns to see the aristocracy of the white skin … reduced to drudgery work,” Cartwright correlates the Irish’s susceptibility with their supposedly unnatural behavior (312). Unlike the negro, the Irish were not accustomed to work in such high temperatures, and lacked the physiological adaptations that would allow their body to compensate for the strained supply of oxygen (Cartwright 305). Therefore, any proposed solution would be “incomplete and ineffectual, unless the practice of making negroes out of the master’s race of men … be abolished” (Cartwright 306). Cartwright’s final recommendation was two-fold: the creation of an economy where indoor jobs would be plentiful for white immigrants, and the sole use of “non-conductor” negroes (thought to be physically resilient against yellow fever) to “insulate” the ports from disease transmittance (Cartwright
How did Cartwright’s attitudes about race and class shape his proposed solution to the yellow fever outbreak? Patrick Brennan offers an answer to this question in his essay “Getting Out of Crescent City: Irish Immigration and the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1853.” Brennan argues that the majority of New Orleans physicians, including Cartwright, “explained the ravages of the epidemic as essentially behavioral” (199). By criticizing and blaming the habits and behavior of the immigrants instead of recognizing the true problem of severe poverty, the community “absolved themselves of financial and moral responsibility” (199). Brennan proclaims that Cartwright’s belief in the existence and preservation of racial standards was principal to his development of solutions. He concludes that, “according to [Cartwright] there was no solution, no remedy to prevent the occurrence of the epidemic until the immigrants learned how to behave in a more, appropriate, white manner” (198). While this statement does correctly identify Cartwright’s critical attitude towards the immigrants, it falsely assumes that Cartwright believed it was solely the immigrants’ responsibility to change this behavior. Brennan ignores Cartwright’s call to the elites for assistance, especially in regards to policy changes