A water vessel packed full of refugees unwell with yellow fever, sluggish as a snail, sail over to Philadelphia in 1793. A sly fox, one lone mosquito bites one refugee and flies off to infect someone else and spread the illness... We have an epidemic! Now, the older, respected Philadelphia doctors fought with the newcomer French doctors from Haiti over which was the genuine treatment to cure a patient infected with yellow fever. Their ideas were all very disparate, but both had a few little similar characteristics. Still, with all their efforts, by the time the fever died, 2,000 to 5,000 people had become deceased. To start off, there were several similarities between the Philly and French doctors. First of all, most of the doctors cared about their patients like a brother, but there was no veritable cure for yellow fever. They all tried their best to aid everyone, but nevertheless, most of their patients died. Another similarity is, how …show more content…
After the similarities, the American doctors were exceedingly rough with their treatments, bleeding, blistering, and giving heavy laxatives to their patients while the French doctors from Haiti, who were no strangers to yellow fever, were quite gentle. They prescribed pleasant baths, plenty of fluids, and pain medications. After that, the American cure was a little tough to survive, while the French cure was very effective in keeping people alive. Consequently, with the Philadelphia treatment, several people died, and only some of them lived. With the French treatment, patients could stay alive for longer. Lastly, physicians in Philadelphia sometimes forced cures against nature rather than the French doctors who smoothly worked along with nature. American doctors, for example, Dr. Benjamin Rush, prescribed “a murderous dose” of an insanely strong laxative, and a dose as large as a mountain. French doctors used stimulants to help a body fight the
In the early 1900’s medicine was making some steps closer into some great improvements for health and better understanding of the human body. Doctors with sufficient knowledge of the human body and cures for diseases and viruses were scarce. People were much more concerned with government and politics, than health and medicine, until one of the greatest and most grotesque lethal pandemics that’s struck the earth in human history. This pandemic the “Spanish Flu” spread so rapidly and had an extremely high mortality rate. This was caused by the close contact of humans and poor cleanliness and sanitation, and the host (virus) and the body taking harsh action
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
The doctors that came up with the treatments for this disease were French and American. The American and French doctors were similar in many ways. They both treated yellow fever and they were both curing in the same city ,Philadelphia.
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”.
Yellow fever, a viral hemorrhagic fever, was one of the deadliest diseases to hit North America. It is transmitted by female mosquitoes of the Aedes aegypti species. When a person is infected with the disease, the symptoms of high fever, nausea, vomiting, yellowing of the skin (also known as jaundice) and muscle aches occur. The cause of Yellow Fever was not known to colonial doctors. It would not be known until 1900. Until then, eighteenth century doctors used the only knowledge they had to fight the
Even though the Philadelphia and French doctors had different ways to attempt to fix yellow fever, there were many similarities too. To start with, both Philadelphia
Yellow Fever was like a massive fire burning through Philadelphia killing thousands and thousands of people! It was also like a lightning bolt which struck the earth as hard as a runaway train. If you did not know, Yellow Fever is a horrific disease which comes from certain diseased, or infected mosquitoes. The Philadelphian and French doctors had to come up with a solution, or clarification. They both came up with a cure that they thought would be able to help people with the illness. This certain event happened in the summer of 1793 in Philadelphia. The mosquitoes came from some ships that sailed over seas into Philadelphia ports . There was between 2000-5000 people dead. It almost feels like 10,000 were dead! Yellow Fever still exist
1793: the yellow fever has taken over Philadelphia like butterflies migrating. I am a first year physician to volunteer to help fever victims. I, the physician, am doing this so I can report back to to King George the III. There were over a 1,000 people that died of yellow fever in Philadelphia. That is most of the population in Philadelphia. So I am going to study these two methods (the two methods are the American method and the French method.)
To start off, here are the similarities the the french and American doctors had in common. Their top priority was to save the yellow fever victims the best that they could. One of the hardest parts was to find what would work was if it help the fever calm down. It was a hard job helping the victims. It all depended
He wrote that he saw three out of thirteen patients die after conducting these procedures. Perplexed and frustrated, Rush turned to a doctor named Stephens. Dr. Stephens had traveled to Philadelphia from the Caribbean island St. Croix. In St. Croix, Stephens worked extensively with patients who were stricken with yellow fever. He gave Rush his remedies for treating yellow fever. In his conversation with Rush, Dr. Stephens proclaimed that all evacuations of the humors had to be stopped. He claimed that they were hurtful to the health of the patient. He wrote that the use of wine, barks of plants, and cold baths were more useful in stopping the
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
Though this is not common knowledge, or “untold”, Molly Caldwell Crosby’s The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped our History is a resource that accounts it in its entirety. Its thorough account of medical and cultural history surrounding the virus is a guide through every part of the virus’s time in the United States, eradication, and eventual long term effects. The book is a paramount resource for anyone looking for a thorough knowledge of the subject of yellow fever, and shows that the United States, and the world, truly would not have been the same without the existence and manifestation of yellow fever in
Going back to the European model, he turned to books to find a treatment that was going to keep his patients from succumbing to the fever. He wrote, “I ransacked my library and poured over every book that treated the yellow fever.” As he was searching through his library, he found a manuscript from Virginia written in 1741. The writings of a doctor named John Mitchell would give Rush the breakthrough he had been searching for. Upon discovering Mitchell’s work Rush wrote, “A new train of ideas suddenly broke in upon my
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.