Research Paper On Yellow Fever

The scalpel slid across the skin pouring out the blood. Choking down the laxatives and vitamins to rid the toxin from your blood. In 1793, these were the treatments of Dr. Rush, Philadelphia and Dr. Devese, Haiti. In 1793, Yellow Fever struck Philadelphia killing 1­5 people. If you had a splitting headache, felt weak, vomiting dark vile, gums bleeding, and eyes and skin having a yellow tinge, you had Yellow Fever.

In 1793 Philadelphia suffered from a deadly disease that spread all through the town; it was called yellow fever. The Philadelphia Doctors and the French doctors were attempting to treat yellow fever. The doctors had many ways to try to fix this, but they did not have the technology we do today. Yellow fever occurred 1793. The outbreak happened in Philadelphia. This sad event that killed many people was all because of infected mosquitoes. They came over with the ill refuges. About 2,000 to 5,000 people died. All in all, this was one of the one of the worst things to occur in history

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.

The 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis proved to be fatal, killing almost all who got infected. The disease traveled up from New Orleans infecting and killing many on its way. Memphis was going through reconstruction and was becoming the center for merchants and travelers. Furthermore, Memphis began to become overly populated only increasing the devastation that would be caused by the yellow fever. This was a confusing period were even medical professionals did not know where the disease came from or how they could to stop it. The epidemic caused panic and challenged the state government of Tennessee and made changes to it that are still in effect today.

Unfair competition and socialism amongst physicians and medical students emerged as medicine advanced and health departments were formed. “Nurses in schools were resisted by physicians who would lose some patients if they were cared for at school--city (New York City Health Department) pointed out that they would gain more patients by referral--physicians prevented them from doing any significant medical care.” (Starr.) The demand for care increased as the use of checkups and health exams--insurance, job, school became more commonly used in day-to-day practice. Chapter 5 also introduced a new idea of germ theory, “in the first half of the nineteenth century, some authorities attributed epidemics to cotagonian and recommended quarantines-an ecomonically damaging measure.”

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;

Fever: 1793 by Laurie Halsey Anderson is told from the perspective of Mattie Cook in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the 1793 yellow fever epidemic. She lives with her cold-hearted Mother, her aging Grandfather, a Revolutionary War veteran with a parrot named King George. There’s also Eliza, a free black woman who works at the Cook Coffeehouse and Nathaniel, a charming guy Mattie likes. It starts out as yellow fever spreads around with the punishing heat. It’s killing many people, such as Polly, their often lazy servant girl. “Mother” as Mattie calls her is being very protective with the fever spreading around. In fact, people don’t really know what’s going on. As the fever got worse and people started realizing that

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

To start off with the doctors, the doctors where one of the reasons why people died well at least the British doctors because they would first examine you tell you how you where and how they would open your arm and start taking away your blood the amount was 10-15 ounces per day, that was bad because losing too much blood like that s like of you shot yourself four times with a gun. Another person we can thank for letting fever victims die is family, friends, neighbors would kicked you out onto the streets if you had yellow fever and if you were on the streets that's sad because you would die soon enough no recourse and no cures for you. One major thing that killed people with yellow fever was the weather if it was cold you would freeze to death because a virus is super effective against cold and heat would make fever victims faint old just feel dizzy and make them do lots of things. A thing that most people didn't lie to do in those times or did not find important was taking baths and that's why people get easily sick not just from yellow fever however also from other diseases or viruses because washing your body washes away and germs that you had on you and that would also prevent you from getting sick in the first

When people returned from the country they realized how bad the disease actually was in the city. With the fear of this happening again, the people of Philadelphia united and started working together. An example of this is that Matthew Clarkson (mayor of Philadelphia) and his committee worked together to make the city cleaner. They would add sewer systems and clean drinking water to the city to help prevent another epidemic. Anderson creates the lesson in “Fever 1793” by using dialogue and inner thoughts. By the end, it is clear that people started to working together to create better

The Doctors were the only people who could treat this bilious fever. The doctors had some similar tactics or ways to treat. First of all, both of the doctors truly cared for there patients. Evidently, in the second to last paragraph, it read that “the “French Cure” is keeping their patients alive” and for the Philadelphian it reads “they had always cared for their patients”. The second comparison I can make is to feed the patient's lots of liquids. For example, in paragraph 3 it says for Philadelphian “Drink wine and take cold baths” and for French is reads “Dr. Deveze advocating giving patients plenty of fluids”. Last but not least, the two doctors (French and Philadelphian) both give out pain relievers. In paragraph 2 it says, “Take a salt of tartar in lime juice and barley water and laudanum (pain killer)” and in paragraph 12 it also says, “ Pain medications and fever-reducing medications were used to relieve symptoms of fever and aching”.

The Yellow Fever virus came from Central or East Africa. With transmission between primates and humans, the virus has been spread from there to West Africa. The virus was probably brought to the Americas with the slave trade ships from 1492 after the first European exploration. The first case of Yellow fever was recorded in Mexico by Spanish colonists in 1648. Consequently, the virus started to spread also in North America. In Philadelphia in 1793, more than the 9% of the population die. The American government had to escape from the city that was the temporary capital. One of the most famous outbreaks happen in Europe in Barcelona in 1821.How explains the article "The 'plague' of Barcelona. Yellow Fever epidemic of 1821", the outbreak of

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

Most people don’t know that 10% of people that get Yellow Fever die from it. However some viruses are more harmful than others which may scare some people. The many symptoms of Yellow Fever may make this viral infection seem frightening even though there is a treatment available, the history is quite unique, but how it is spread may surprise people.

In the spring of 1918, the first wave of one of the deadliest influenza pandemics began plaguing its victims (Peters, ix). Over the span of three lethal waves, the pandemic claimed approximately forty million victims, eradicating nearly twenty percent of the entire world’s population, or about one out of five individuals (Peters, ix). To make matters more dire, the ill-suited medical community was exceptionally unprepared for such a wide-scale pandemic: Doctors had very basic tools, knew little about diseases, and had no experience with vaccinations or prevention (Peters, 1-5; “The 1920s: Medicine and Health: Overview”, n.p.). People blindly faced the epidemic, relying on folk remedies such as consuming wine, drinking antiseptic, and