THE YELLOW FEVER AT BUENOS AYRES.

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 934, 25 July 1871, Page 2

THE YELLOW FEVER AT BUENOS AYRES.

We (Argus) have been favored with a copy of the El National of Buenos Ayres, of the 10th of April last, containing the address issued by the Popular Commission, or Board of Health, in relation to the awful epidemic then raging. Far from seeking to underrate the extent of the calamity which has befallen the city, this document frankly admits that it is without a parallel and without a remedy. The death-rate from the yellow~fever is acknowledged to be flora 300 to 400 daily out of a population of less than 70,000 souls. Science is powerless to grapple with the malady, and the number of victims is daily augmenting. It has prevailed for three months; and the aspect of the city resembles-that of London during the Great Plague, so graphically described by Defoe. All kinds of industry and commerce are completely paralysed. Nothing but funeral processions are to be seen in the silent and gloomy thoroughfares which under ordinary circumstances are so full of life, gaiety, and movement. The medical faculty canuot discern "any probable term to the prevalence of the scourge ; and during the first fortnight in April it is calculated that the deaths reached the frightful total of 5000. Not more than 40,000 inhabitants remained in the city, aud of these it is believed that one-fourth, were prostrated by sickness. As it has been declared by men of science in Buenos Ayres, that the houses of illfamo are materially accessory to the spread of the fever, the municipal council has caused an order to be issued for the suppression of the whole of them. How hopeless and desperate is the condition of the city may be inferred from the follow? ing passage in the report of the Popular Commission ; the words we have italicised being printed in capitals: — "After lengthened and serious discussions, the commission recommends all who can do so to abandon the city, and to remove from it as quickly as jwssible, in order to save themselves and their families from the irremediable evils to which they are exposed. The temporary depopulation of this ciiy, infected by miasma, which appears to have poisoned the air we breathe, is the only remedy the commission can suggest to combat the scourge which has already swept away thousands of victims, and which threatens to destroy the lives of all who continue to inhabit this place of desolation and death." The commission is composed of Spanish, French, German, and English citizens^ and is described by the National as being indefatigable, day and night, in the fulfilment of its beneficent mission.