[Excerpted from THE PHILOSOPHICAL EPHEMERA OF THE NOVANGLIAN COLLEGE OF LUCIDITY, vol. v (1775), circulated in manuscript form]

OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROGRESSION OF THE SMALLPOX IN HOMO AFRI.

BY MR. JOSIAH GITNEY, M. PHIL. CANTAB., AND MR. RICHARD SHARPE

THE PLAGUE of Smallpox being so great among us and so rapacious in its appetites, it is a most desirable article of knowledge, to establish how its hungers might best be combated, for the great comfort of Mankind. The question has arisen frequently among the planters of the South, whether the Negro suffer the affliction with the same degree of hardship as the European, with a practical view, on this head, of establishing whether inoculation of slaves will prove both effective and efficient.

TO THIS END, taking advantage of the current unrest, we arranged for the inoculation and sequestration of a number of subjects, both white and black; and, combining the data from this quarantined sample with mortality figures from two Virginia plantations, we have made certain physiological and forensic observations which may shed some practical light on the question of whether inoculation of bonded Africans should be undertaken by individuals fearful that such a course will hamper productivity and adversely affect profit.

THE MASSACHUSETTS SEQUESTRATION involved 49 individuals; of whom 11 had previously had the pox, and were thus immune. Of the remaining 38, 20 were of African and 18 of European blood. The inoculation was administered on the arm of each subject.¹ Of those variolated, only three developed symptoms of any magnitude: a white male of seven years, the first to show pustules, died of internal rupture; a white male of sixteen years was enflamed in his entirety with the excrudescencies, and yet survived, though disfigured significantly; and a black female of twenty-nine years demonstrated a severe cutaneous infection which eventually traveled inwards; of which she died.

1. Did we repeat the experiment, we should instead inoculate in the leg, which, being further removed from the pneumatic, electrico-ætherial, and hydraulico-vascular machinery, is less likely to lead to internal corrosion and fatality, viz. Dr. Adam Thomson’s Discourse for the Preparation of the Body, &c.

SEVERAL HEROICAL ATTEMPTS at palliative intervention were attempted, especially to the last-mentioned subject. Initially desirous of maintaining the circulation of animal spirits and humoral percolation, we administered (a) venesection by fleam, and, having let her blood to no little degree, we instantly turned the subject over and (b) inserted a glyster of quinine. This occasioned the subject discomfort only; and we feared that the vital juices would cease circulation. Accordingly, we alternated draughts of (c) laudanum and (d) volatiles, trusting that where the former would soothe, the latter would excite; the first quelling the patient’s disposition to dramatic phrenzy (such as was demonstrated at the application of the enema), the second restoring the patient to consciousness; but both relaxant and stimulant met with similar indifference, given the exhaustion attendant upon the disease. The subject’s papules at this time — the third day since their first appearance — consolidated and gave rise to pustular vesicles, which no amount of cauterization with poker or rupture with lancet could stem. We administered (e) an oral infusion of quinine; (f) a saline bath suggested by a celebrated balneologist; and (g) several cathartics (jalap, senna, sublimate of mercury, crab’s claw); the extreme dose of which may have been what occasioned the loss of her hair and most of her teeth two days before her death.

These measures failing, we resorted to an Indian method of which we had heard no little report: We placed the subject in a small underground chamber which we had infused with a great quantity of steam; and after she had come to a prodigious sweat, removed her to the frigid, icy bath; alternating back and forth between them for some time. The results of this were inconclusive, beyond the extraordinary discomfort it apparently occasioned the subject, who protested weakly as we placed her in the steam chamber the first several times; eventually falling silent. She did not speak again before her death.

It would appear that, a day before the moment of demise, the subject was blind, and sufficiently fevered as to be insensate. It is unclear whether the blindness proceeded from the invasion of the disease in the ocular area or from an internal nervous disorganization attendant upon her distemper.

It was to scrutinize such questions as these that we undertook a dissection.

WE REMOVED the corpse to a chamber separate from the other subjects and prepared the body for disassembly. Of particular interest in our investigation was the disruption of the skin and its humoral balance by the sores; it being established that, in the African, the median layer of the skin, or secondary lemulla, is suffused with black bile released in the relaxation of the nervous system. It would be of particular interest to determine whether the torment of this tissue in any way interfered with the augmentation of bilious fluxion.

THUS, we began our investigation. A vertical incision was made along the abdomena of the subject from just below the breasts down almost as far as the pubis, terminating at the upper expression of the pelvic cavity. We prepared to make lateral incisions at the termini of this first; these being of no great depth, our interest in the first stage of the dissection being wholly cutaneous; which was to be followed by an inquiry into the progress of the corruption in the alimentary and pneumatic apparati.

WE SHOULD MARK an interruption in our proceedings at this point, which we would omit, were it not of behavioral interest. The son of the subject, an African male of sixteen years, demanded entrance to the experimental chamber; this being denied, he forced the door. Once within, he spied the body. He had not for some three days seen the subject, and had not been at liberty to be present at the subject’s expiration; it being determined that her much-disfigured, impetiginous state and her insensibility would cause unnecessary anguish in a son and could potentially lead to the disordering of his reason.

He stood for some time unmoving, as did we; we, observing, he, oblivious.

Mr. Sharpe noted to the others that the boy was deprived of speech and reason, returned by the sight of the familial dead to his originary savage superstition and stupefaction.

At this, the youth turned to gaze upon Mr. Sharpe. Mr. Sharpe addressed him directly, asking if the boy were capable yet of ratiocination, or was become dumb.

At this, the child produced a scream of startling savagery and attempted to do violence to Mr. Sharpe. He was intercepted in his design by one of the young men who assisted with the procedure; they wrestled.

As their melee progressed, Mr. Sharpe, standing to the side, observed to the African youth that the boy fought for no good end, as no goal could be accomplished by him defeating his opponent; this being excellent proof of the boy’s degeneration back into his natural state, the trappings of civilization having fallen from him.

At this, the boy ceased struggle. The young man who wrestled with him released him, and they both rose.

The African youth stood before us, a gawky and immobile spectacle.

He said, “I cannot fight — nor can I refrain — without imputations of savagery.” And he finished, in a voice not of defiance, but suffused with realization: “I am no one. I am not a man. I am nothing.”

He turned and absented himself from the chamber, his body betraying signs of considerable inward turmoil of spirits in his irregularity of movement.

We called for one of our number who had refrained from the dissection — Dr. John Trefusis — to attend the youth and ensure that he did not lay a hand of violence upon himself or any other. Dr. Trefusis sat with him for some hours; at which point the elder man unfortunately fell asleep, and the youth made his escape, having through some low guile procured a set of keys which he had kept about his person.

By the time we had been roused to his flight, he could not be found in the neighborhood, in spite of the best efforts of many to hunt him down through the night; his sable skin providing cover in the dusk.

We cite this vignette as an example of possible recidivism; it demonstrates not only the confusion but also the fractious and insubordinate natural inclination of the African subject.

WE RETURN to the dissection, as went on apace. Mr. Gitney excused himself from the procedure at this point, so all further notes were taken by Mr. Sharpe.

Making the lateral incisions on the abdomena, we were able to disclose to view both (a) the viscera and (b) the obverse leaf of the skin, which appeared much ravaged by . . .