Yellow Fever In Philadelphia

While reading An American Plague, I noticed an interesting detail that Yellow Fever could actually be prevented. Murphy (2003) notes that doctors noted the symptoms of the sick patients from the disease Yellow Fever. Some of the symptoms were pain in the back and painful aching in the body. This detail led me to wonder if there was a way that you could prevent Yellow fever. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that wearing bug repellent will reduce the chances for getting bit by a mosquito and they also talk about having more clothing on your body will also help because then mosquito's can not bite you. The article also talks about vaccines because we know have a yellow fever vaccine and that will cure yellow fever.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, as the country grew and trade flourished, periodic epidemics struck regions of the nation as population density increased. Outbreaks of influenza, cholera took over the nation, and in the south, one of the most prevalent was yellow fever. Due to these diseases, a lot of public health policies were either created or changed to better suit the new issues arising. In this essay, I will argue that the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 brought upon many changes in the health realm in terms of public sanitation. In order to prove the epidemic s place in the history of health policies, I will be discussing the creation of the new sewer system, waste disposal techniques, and other projects created.

In Philadelphia, 1793, a disease that haunted and still haunts America to this day was the yellow fever. It was caused by a little but deadly mosquito called aedes. It spread this disease to many people and it killed around 5,000 people per town. It was the most deadly plague in American history. Some say it was like the black plague. I’ll be talking about why it’s called the Yellow Fever, how did it spread, how it got to America, how it affected the capital, about our local area back then, the people who were trying to help fight it, and the first hospital ever built.

Throughout history many different diseases have infected the world. Such diseases consist of measles, mumps, malaria, typhus and yellow fever. Many of these diseases are caused by different things and originated in different countries.

A great misfortune took place during the summer of 1793. It was one of the driest and hottest summers in years making way for many disease spreading pests like mosquitoes (Gum 1). Said bugs and rodents took the lives of thousands leaving Colonial America in terrible condition. The College of Physicians not only established organization during this time of chaos, but they also limited future epidemics like the events that took place in Philadelphia and Colonial America from occurring again. To expand upon, the college created eleven rules for people to follow in order to prevent Yellow Fever from dispersing any further (Dobson 2). These rules included avoiding “all unnecessary intercourse” with those who have contracted the disease; housing all of the diseased in a large open room, removing “offensive matters from the diseased’s room” (2), frequently cleaning the selected room, and bathing the infected as quickly as possible; having a medical center for each city so the poor can also be assisted with regards to Yellow Fever; putting a stop to the ringing of the church bells; burying the dead fever victims in a private manner;

France was at war with many countries. John Adams later would write 10,000 citizens marched in Philadelphia, threatening to drag Washington and make him declare war. Adams thought that the yellow fever prevented chaos. At the start, people believed that the two-thousand five-hundred city’s African-Americans were immune to the fever. Philadelphians initially blamed the outbreak on refugees from France. People believe the disease spread person to person. Recommendation for ridding of the disease were smoking tobacco, cleaning yourself with vinegar, carrying a tarred rope, covering the floors of rooms with a two-inch-deep layer of dirt, chewing garlic, hanging a bag of camphor around your neck, lighting bonfires, and setting off guns in the

Philadelphia 1793, Philadelphia was one of the most most populated places in the world with 50,000 people in it. Philadelphia started having issues like yellow fever until fever victims started showing results of what happens when you get the sickness, soon people left the cities to be close to how many people left it was approximately 20,000 people. With people leaving faster and faster per day since people were dying, people got scared I would to, since at the end of the day over 5,000 people died.

Nikolette Domann Domann 1 Mr. Bills 27 February, 2017 Pain and Suffering in “Fever 1793” In today's world, although sickness is still around, it's more contained because we have advances in technology. Worrying about getting sick, isn't a problem as much as it used to be. Yet when illness and disease struck Philadelphia in 1793. Mattie Cook struggles to stay happy in a universe full of sadness.

Imagine yourself sick and no cure in 1793 in Philadelphia your dead or someone else is dead. If I lived during 1793 in Philadelphia the struggles would include disease, survival, death. To begin, the whole book is about yellow fever and yellow fever is a disease. For example the story initially starts in the second chapter, Polly one of Matilda's friend dies from a fever but they do not know what fever. What this means is that the fever is barely starting in Philadelphia. Additionally, it has seemed that survival was very important and very hard in Philadelphia. On page 24 in the first sentence it had said how many people have died already “A week later sixty-four people had died.” This explains that the fever was going very quickly and you

Jim Murphy, in his nonfictional narrative An american Plague, describes in vivid detail the challenges faced by the citizens of Philadelphia during the devastating Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. During the dreadful and deadly time, there were many selfless volunteers to stepped forward to help. Mayor Matthew Clarkson was one of the brave individuals who chose to stay in Philadelphia to provide leadership, despite the danger. Through his strong sense of duty, his selflessness, and unwavering perseverance, Mayor Clarkson became a symbol of heroism for all the selfless volunteers who stayed and made a real difference in Philadelphia.

Humphreys, however, takes a political approach in “Yellow Fever and the South,” focusing on governmental actions outside of the realm of the courtroom. Her work is composed of a detailed outline of the development of public health in the South and the subsequent tension that manifested between federal and state powers. Humphreys asserts that public health in the South was born in response to the frequent yellow fever outbreaks in urban environments where there was “overcrowding, putrefying organic matter, and the excavation of soil for construction.” Sanitary reform, along with quarantine, was an often attempted mechanism of epidemic prevention. Sanitation efforts were difficult given the fierce belief in laissez-faire government, the conflation

The reader knows all was not right in philadelphia during 1793. While reading the book “An american Plague”, the reader is informed about the number of mysterious deaths from an unknown fever. There are only a certain number of advanced doctors who are going to be able to figure the traits of the fever and come to a conclusion on what has caused it and what it is spread by. One of the doctors remembers when he was 16 that a plague occurring was the yellow fever, it was killing dozens of people rich and poor. It had the same exact traits of the unknown sickness that was killing people daily.

About 225 years ago, a bilious disease had an outbreak in Philadelphia. In 1793 a huge epidemic in Philadelphia was the yellow fever. But, the real problem was how to cure this horrid fever. There were two types of doctors back then, there were the Philadelphia doctors and the French doctors and each had different treatment theories for Yellow Fever. This hatred disease was caused by infected mosquitoes. How did the mosquitoes start the disease you might ask? They caught the disease from the infected refugees that came from Haiti. It is not an exact number, but it was estimated that there were 2000-5000 people that died from the fever afterwards.

The historical research done into the lives of the principals, details of historical events and of the virus of yellow fever. As Crosby asserts, yellow fever came from West Africa to the United States on slave ships, is carried by mosquitoes and thrives in warm and wet environments (History.com Staff, 2009). However, in the book Crosby focuses the view of the history of yellow fever in the United States on the Memphis epidemic of 1878. While this was a massive epidemic and the worst one in American history, (Crosby, 41), the research leaves out other major predecessors to the Memphis epidemic. The Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic in 1793 depopulated the nation’s capital at similar levels and was the first major outbreak in the United States (Graham, 2016). Outbreaks continued. The outbreak in New Orleans in 1853, settled in the perfect environment for an outbreak, killed a whopping 7,849 (Waits, 2016). Though these epidemics and others are mentioned in Crosby’s account, they are presented as more of an afterthought than an important part of the history of yellow fever as they

The first known outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease was in 1976 after the American Legion conference in Philadelphia Pennsylvania—from which it receives its name (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). According to a New York Times article, when the “Philly Killer”, as it was termed at the time, hit Pennsylvania, no one had previously seen this disease. In addition to Legionnaires’ disease erupting at this time, a new strain of influenza had emerged and Americans feared an epidemic. After six long months, 221 cases and 34 deaths, the “Philly Killer” was pinned on the bacteria Legionella pneumophila, which was spread through the air conditioning system of the conventions’ hotel. (Altman, 2006)