In the summer of 1793 a heat wave hit the city of Philadelphia. Bounded on two sides by the Delaware and Schuykill rivers the city, with its exposed sewers, usually smelled quite unpleasant during the summer months. However, the excessive heat and the unusual number of dead animals left to rot in the streets and alleyways, combined to make the stench almost unbearable. Before long the human inhabitants also began to die at an alarming rate. Before cooler weather brought relief from the awful smell and sickness, approximately 5,000 of Philadelphia's 51,000 inhabitants were dead.
Included in this Newbery Honor Book are the thoughts of some of Philadelphia's leading citizens such as George Washington, then President of the United States, who credited the timing of the plague with saving America from becoming involved in the French Revolution. Washington felt America could not afford to become embroiled in the problems of the French, but public sentiment ran highly in favor of aiding them because they had helped America gain freedom from the British. When the spread of yellow fever shut down government operations due to death and the flight of most of congress to other cities, Washington had the excuse he needed to remain neutral with the French.
Even though the plague killed almost 10 percent of the population, physicians and politicians of the day never could agree on what actually caused the illness in the first place; never making the connection between the red bumps that "resembled moscheto bites" according to Dr. Benjamin Rush, prominent physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the mosquitoes that swarmed the city that summer. Fortunately, improved sanitation was one of the results of the devastation of the 1793 plague mostly because "doctors agreed that foul smells were not healthy and might promote disease."
Review excerpt from Booklist: "Drawing on firsthand accounts, medical and non-medical, Murphy re-creates the fear and panic in the infected city, the social conditions that caused the disease to spread, and the arguments about causes and cures. With archival prints, photos, contemporary newspaper facsimiles that include lists of the dead, and full, chatty source notes, he tells of those who fled and those who stayed--among them, the heroic group of free blacks who nursed the ill and were later vilified for their work. Some readers may skip the daily details of life in eighteenth-century Philadelphia; in fact, the most interesting chapters discuss what is now known of the tiny fever-carrying mosquito and the problems created by over-zealous use of pesticides. The current struggle to contain the SARS epidemic brings the "unshakeable unease" chillingly close."
Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Murphy, Jim. An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. New York: Clarion, 2003.
Included in this Newbery Honor Book are the thoughts of some of Philadelphia's leading citizens such as George Washington, then President of the United States, who credited the timing of the plague with saving America from becoming involved in the French Revolution. Washington felt America could not afford to become embroiled in the problems of the French, but public sentiment ran highly in favor of aiding them because they had helped America gain freedom from the British. When the spread of yellow fever shut down government operations due to death and the flight of most of congress to other cities, Washington had the excuse he needed to remain neutral with the French.
Even though the plague killed almost 10 percent of the population, physicians and politicians of the day never could agree on what actually caused the illness in the first place; never making the connection between the red bumps that "resembled moscheto bites" according to Dr. Benjamin Rush, prominent physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the mosquitoes that swarmed the city that summer. Fortunately, improved sanitation was one of the results of the devastation of the 1793 plague mostly because "doctors agreed that foul smells were not healthy and might promote disease."
Review excerpt from Booklist: "Drawing on firsthand accounts, medical and non-medical, Murphy re-creates the fear and panic in the infected city, the social conditions that caused the disease to spread, and the arguments about causes and cures. With archival prints, photos, contemporary newspaper facsimiles that include lists of the dead, and full, chatty source notes, he tells of those who fled and those who stayed--among them, the heroic group of free blacks who nursed the ill and were later vilified for their work. Some readers may skip the daily details of life in eighteenth-century Philadelphia; in fact, the most interesting chapters discuss what is now known of the tiny fever-carrying mosquito and the problems created by over-zealous use of pesticides. The current struggle to contain the SARS epidemic brings the "unshakeable unease" chillingly close."
Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Murphy, Jim. An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. New York: Clarion, 2003.
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