Name/Title
A treatise on the plague and yellow fever.Description
Tytler, James, 1747?-1805. With an appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720; &c. ... Salem: Printed by Joshua Corning, for B.B. Macanulty, 1799. 141, 568 p., [I] folding table; 23 cm. (8vo) Described in the Dictionary of National Biography (XIX: 1379) as a "literary hack and scientific dabbler," Tyler studied medicine at Edinburgh, but, as was not uncommon at the time, took no degree. He then began a peripatetic career as surgeon, apothecary and sometime printer and publisher. It was Tyler who edited the second edition of the Éncyclopedia Brittanica, much of which he wrote. Fleeing Scotland for political reasons in 1793, Tyler settled in Salem, Mass., where he edited a newspaper. The second part of this work (pp. [371]-544) is devoted to yellow fever. In considering its origins, cause, symptoms, etc., Tytler loads his pages with such an abundance of quotation from Hillary, Moseley, Lining, Lind, Jackson, Chisholm, Rush, et al., that it becomes almost impossible to follow the author's argument (if there is one). Text accompanied by Folding table: "Comparative view of the characters and most remarkable symptoms of the plague, yellow fever, fever of Boullam, and of Philadelphia in 1793."
See Thomas A. Abel “Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds” Chapter 2 for a discussion of Tytler and his theory that yellow fever was caused by God as a punishment.