Bring Out Your Dead: The Great Plague of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793

As I write this it's approaching summer in Philadelphia and I have just been reminded to shut the windows by a hungry mosquito that zipped under my nose and sat on my arm. I don't live very far from 3rd and Walnut where Dr Benjamin Rush and his assistants were bleeding patients out in the street. I also walk by Samuel Powell's home several times a week and the placards remind me of his death in that great plague. Indeed all over Philadelphia there are tangential reminders of the plague, the bodies were often buried where they dropped and of course there are graveyards all over the city. If I had a backyard I would be very interested to dig around in it. The most terrifying aspect of this book is how Powell, correctly, focuses on the medical mythologies of the time, you can hardly call what they practice science. Their theories of how the plague was created: rotten coffee on a dock, foul miasmas in the air, boat loads of refugees from Santo Domingo are only topped by the remedies they invented and proudly advertised. From discharging rifles and cannons to 'break up the air' to bleeding quarts of blood from gravely ill patients while also forcing them to ingest mercury and jalap which basically cauterized their innards and blackened their teeth. The healthy who couldn't afford to run off to country homes went terrified about their business taking the extra precaution to soak their clothes in vinegar, wear camphor dipped cotton balls stuffed up their noses while chewing garlic and smoking cigars. It's a fascinating read and residents of center city Philadelphia should familiarize themselves with it.

Obviousely by what was written from the first reviewer he has no medical knowledge. This book portrays a disasterous time in Philadelphia that was repeated several times thereafter. However, the medical treatment in this time was based on the humours of the body : black bile, yellow bile, blood and phelgm. They utilized bloodletting and mercury concoctions to purge the body of "pestilence". This book tells the story of the time of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793. It paints a picture of a time where cleanliness wasn't exactly up to par and nor was the medical care. At the time Philadelphia was thought to have the leading field in medicine, however the doctors were not prepared for that kind of crisis. There was many theories about what was causing the sickness. In that time they believed that rotting coffee brought overseas was the reason why people were falling ill. Another believed that it was unseen vectors in the air. That summer many french refugees from the island of santa domingo arrived telling tales or a horrid fever. That July was when the fever struck; people had violent fever, yellow skin and black vomit. They usually died within a few days. When the frost finally arrived that November and killed the mosquitoes (that were the cause of it) one-tenth of the citys residents had died. I highly recommend this book. It paints a clear picture of an effect of an epidemic in a time when not much could be done.

Frequently when we study history we fail to realize how fragile health was in pre technological early American life. Yellow fever worked its manevolence on the average of an outbreak every 10 years back in the 18th century. The plague of 1793 was particularly bad, and here is its chronicle. The writer, John Powell, was a scholar and reasearch director of the Free Library of Philadelphia. With access to the papers of Dr. Benjamin Rush his account is a factual, and thougough study of the great plague. It is fully indexed, illustrated, and annotated; with an interesting editor's preface in addition to the author's preface, and afterwards.

This is a great story, full of familiar people (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson), life and death situations, bravery, cowardice, avarice, public hysteria, and stupidity. The author chose to focus on the drama of the event and the clash of medical authorities. But it seems to me that an even greater story lies in the mystery of why no serious effort was made to solve the mystery. That is, given that no one knew what caused the sudden and inexplicable death of thousands of America's finest citizen's, why was the scientific method not applied? Instead, the medical profession selected a host of mostly disastrous therapies, mainly lethal doses of mercury and bloodletting. Possibly as many people died from the "cures" as from the disease. What does this event tell us about our society's willingness to accept authority and mysticism, when a small dose of knowledge would go a whole lot further? This is a fascinating if horrifying portrait of our culture, as well as a great read.