Stubbins Ffirth

Stubbins Ffirth H. (* 1784 in Salem (New Jersey), † 1820) was an American physician who became known through self- tests to yellow fever infections.

Work

After the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia 1793 Ffirth soon wrote a at the University of Pennsylvania. As a doctor in training, he later turned to studies on the infectivity of yellow fever to complete his medical studies with a degree. To this end he carried out some experiments on himself.

Ffirths goal was to prove that it did not involve an infectious disease of yellow fever. Starting from the observation that the number of yellow fever disease in summer was significantly higher than in winter, and patient observations, he put on the presumption that it was in yellow fever is a disease that primarily by increased arousal such as heat, food or noise has been triggered. As a result, he started from 1802 to inject the typical black vomit in various ways. Practices were thereby introducing about cuts in the arm, instilling in the eye area, inhalation of vapors of the vomit, as well as the different types of consumption thereof. Then he introduced other body fluids such as blood, urine, and saliva into his bloodstream. In all of these trials did not happen only in minor symptoms such as headache, sweating, nausea, or inflammation, however, to an infection with yellow fever. He published his results in 1804 and handed them to the University of Pennsylvania successfully as a dissertation, after which he received his doctorate.

It was later discovered that the yellow fever is actually transmitted by mosquitoes bites, and yellow fever virus is the cause. This explains the one hand, the difference of the disease numbers between summer and winter, it also leads to the question of why Ffirth not ill. Assumptions go beyond pure luck up to believe that the patients whose body fluids Ffirth used, were in a late stage of disease in which there is no more transfer.