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Mobile (Ala.). Committee on Causes and Extent of the Late Extraordinary Sickness and Mortality in the Town
A striking early public-health document, this work comes from a Mobile, Alabama committee formed to investigate a deadly outbreak in the town. Its report reads like a firsthand inquiry into disease, sanitation, and civic responsibility on the Gulf Coast in the early 1800s.
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Report of the committee appointed to investigate the causes and extent of the late extraordinary sickness and mortality in the town of Mobile
by Mobile (Ala.). Committee on Causes and Extent of the Late Extraordinary Sickness and Mortality in the Town
About the author
Written not by a single author but by Mobile (Ala.). Committee on Causes and Extent of the Late Extraordinary Sickness and Mortality in the Town, this report was first published in 1819, with an 1820 Philadelphia edition also widely cataloged. Library and archive records identify it as an official committee investigation into the severe sickness and mortality that struck Mobile.
The text examines local conditions in detail, especially the town's wharves, docks, streets, and decaying fill materials near the river. In the report, the committee argues that these unhealthy environmental conditions, together with the season, could account for the fever outbreak without assuming it had been imported from elsewhere.
Catalog records also note Jacob Ludlow among the associated contributors, and some records say the report was signed by him and other committee members. Because this is a committee publication rather than the work of one clearly documented individual author, a personal portrait is not readily applicable here.