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During the hot, humid summer of 1793, thousands of Philadelphians got horribly sick, suffering from fevers and chills, jaundiced skin, stomach pains and vomit tinged black with blood.

By the end of August, as more and more people began dying from this mysterious affliction, wealthier residents of the nation's capital were fleeing in droves. The city's free black community, meanwhile, largely stayed behind and many were enlisted to help care for the sick.

"It is called a yellow fever, but is like nothing known or read of by the Physicians," wrote Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson in September 1793.

Debate Over Yellow Fever's Causes

At the time, no one knew what caused yellow fever, or how it spread. Some thought it had been brought to Philadelphia by a ship bearing French refugees from a slave rebellion in Santo Domingo (now Haiti). Others-including the city's leading physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush-believed it originated in the poor sanitary conditions and contaminated air of the city itself.

However the disease had arrived, Philadelphians in 1793 desperately sought to avoid getting it. They began keeping their distance from each other and avoided shaking hands. They covered their faces with handkerchiefs dipped in vinegar or smoked tobacco, which they thought would prevent them from breathing in contaminated air.

The Well-to-Do Exit the City

Those who had the means to leave the city quickly did so, including Jefferson himself. President George Washington, who returned to his beloved Mount Vernon estate, blamed his exit on the concerns of his wife, Martha.

Alexander Hamilton contracted yellow fever early in the epidemic, and he and his family left the city for their summer home a few miles away. Hamilton's wife, Eliza, soon fell ill as well, and their children were evacuated to Eliza's parents home in Albany, New York. They both recovered under the care of Dr. Edward Stevens, a boyhood friend of Hamilton's from St. Croix whom he met again in Philadelphia.
WATCH: 'Hamilton: Building America' on HISTORY Vault
Among the mass exodus of some 20,000 Philadelphians-nearly half the city's total population at the time-during the yellow fever epidemic were many of the city's doctors, who were terrified of getting ill themselves. But Rush, the country's most prominent medical professional and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, stayed behind, working tirelessly to treat rich and poor patients alike. Rush lost his sister to the disease and even fell ill himself, although he recovered.

Controversial Treatment Methods

Despite all his efforts, Rush had just a flawed understanding of yellow fever as anyone else at the time. His undeniably harsh treatments-including bloodletting, "Mercurial Sweating Powder," and forced vomiting-did not curb the spread of the disease, and critics argued it only increased his patients' suffering. These critics included Hamilton, who took up his pen to spread the word of the gentler methods prescribed by his own doctor, which involved taking cold baths, drinking Madeira wine and hot brandy and ingesting large amounts of quinine (aka "Peruvian bark"), according to biographer Ron Chernow.

Stevens' homeopathic approach proved little more effective than Rush's more traditional methods, however, and yellow fever continued to spread. By the time it subsided in November 1793, the disease had killed 5,000 people, or about one-tenth of Philadelphia's population at the time, and infected hundreds of thousands of others. Despite extensive research on the disease in the decades that followed the epidemic, it would take more than a century-and a savage outbreak among troops fighting the Spanish-American War -before Dr. Walter Reed proved in 1900 that mosquitoes carried yellow fever.

Philadelphia's Free Black Community Care for the Sick

"Parents desert their children as soon as they are infected, and in every room you enter you see no person but a solitary black man or woman near the sick," Rush wrote to his wife, Julia, who was in Princeton, New Jersey, with the couple's children, during the 1793 epidemic. "Many people thrust their parents into the street as soon as they complain of a headache."

As his letter indicates, Rush enlisted members of Philadelphia's free African-American community to treat many of the fever's victims as well as do much of the essential labor necessary to keep the city going during the epidemic. He and other white physicians initially (and wrongly) believed African Americans were immune to yellow fever due to supposed biological differences based on race.

Rush was an ardent abolitionist, and had been supportive of the efforts of the city's black community to form their own churches in protest over the segregation of white-led ones. Led by Richard Allen, the co-founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and his fellow minister Absalom Jones, black volunteers provided crucial labor during Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic.

When the publisher Mathew Carey, who served on the city's health committee, issued his account of the epidemic beginning in October 1793, he accused members of Philadelphia's free black community of profiting off the epidemic, even stealing from the houses of fever victims. In response, Allen and Jones published their own pamphlet in early 1794 refuting these accusations in detail. By including eyewitness testimony of the work black Philadelphians did to treat patients, along with detailed documentation of payments and expenses, the two ministers forced Carey to revise his chronicle of the epidemic in later editions.

Allen and Jones' work was the first copyrighted pamphlet written by black authors in the nation's history. Titled A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793, it documented the racism and poor treatment that free African Americans experienced, even as they played a crucial role in combating the most serious epidemic of disease in the history of the still-young nation.

Fact Check

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When the Yellow Fever Outbreak of 1793 Sent the Wealthy Fleeing Philadelphia | HISTORY

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As some 20,000 retreated to the country (including President Washington and Thomas Jefferson), Philadelphia's free black residents were often enlisted to care for the sick.

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During the hot, humid summer of 1793, thousands of Philadelphians got horribly sick, suffering from fevers and chills, jaundiced skin, stomach pains and vomit tinged black with blood.

By the end of August, as more and more people began dying from this mysterious affliction, wealthier residents of the nation's capital were fleeing in droves. The city's free black community, meanwhile, largely stayed behind and many were enlisted to help care for the sick.

"It is called a yellow fever, but is like nothing known or read of by the Physicians," wrote Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson in September 1793.

Debate Over Yellow Fever's Causes

At the time, no one knew what caused yellow fever, or how it spread. Some thought it had been brought to Philadelphia by a ship bearing French refugees from a slave rebellion in Santo Domingo (now Haiti). Others-including the city's leading physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush-believed it originated in the poor sanitary conditions and contaminated air of the city itself.

However the disease had arrived, Philadelphians in 1793 desperately sought to avoid getting it. They began keeping their distance from each other and avoided shaking hands. They covered their faces with handkerchiefs dipped in vinegar or smoked tobacco, which they thought would prevent them from breathing in contaminated air.

The Well-to-Do Exit the City

Those who had the means to leave the city quickly did so, including Jefferson himself. President George Washington, who returned to his beloved Mount Vernon estate, blamed his exit on the concerns of his wife, Martha.

Alexander Hamilton contracted yellow fever early in the epidemic, and he and his family left the city for their summer home a few miles away. Hamilton's wife, Eliza, soon fell ill as well, and their children were evacuated to Eliza's parents home in Albany, New York. They both recovered under the care of Dr. Edward Stevens, a boyhood friend of Hamilton's from St. Croix whom he met again in Philadelphia.
WATCH: 'Hamilton: Building America' on HISTORY Vault
Among the mass exodus of some 20,000 Philadelphians-nearly half the city's total population at the time-during the yellow fever epidemic were many of the city's doctors, who were terrified of getting ill themselves. But Rush, the country's most prominent medical professional and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, stayed behind, working tirelessly to treat rich and poor patients alike. Rush lost his sister to the disease and even fell ill himself, although he recovered.

Controversial Treatment Methods

Despite all his efforts, Rush had just a flawed understanding of yellow fever as anyone else at the time. His undeniably harsh treatments-including bloodletting, "Mercurial Sweating Powder," and forced vomiting-did not curb the spread of the disease, and critics argued it only increased his patients' suffering. These critics included Hamilton, who took up his pen to spread the word of the gentler methods prescribed by his own doctor, which involved taking cold baths, drinking Madeira wine and hot brandy and ingesting large amounts of quinine (aka "Peruvian bark"), according to biographer Ron Chernow.

Stevens' homeopathic approach proved little more effective than Rush's more traditional methods, however, and yellow fever continued to spread. By the time it subsided in November 1793, the disease had killed 5,000 people, or about one-tenth of Philadelphia's population at the time, and infected hundreds of thousands of others. Despite extensive research on the disease in the decades that followed the epidemic, it would take more than a century-and a savage outbreak among troops fighting the Spanish-American War -before Dr. Walter Reed proved in 1900 that mosquitoes carried yellow fever.

Philadelphia's Free Black Community Care for the Sick

"Parents desert their children as soon as they are infected, and in every room you enter you see no person but a solitary black man or woman near the sick," Rush wrote to his wife, Julia, who was in Princeton, New Jersey, with the couple's children, during the 1793 epidemic. "Many people thrust their parents into the street as soon as they complain of a headache."

As his letter indicates, Rush enlisted members of Philadelphia's free African-American community to treat many of the fever's victims as well as do much of the essential labor necessary to keep the city going during the epidemic. He and other white physicians initially (and wrongly) believed African Americans were immune to yellow fever due to supposed biological differences based on race.

Rush was an ardent abolitionist, and had been supportive of the efforts of the city's black community to form their own churches in protest over the segregation of white-led ones. Led by Richard Allen, the co-founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and his fellow minister Absalom Jones, black volunteers provided crucial labor during Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic.

When the publisher Mathew Carey, who served on the city's health committee, issued his account of the epidemic beginning in October 1793, he accused members of Philadelphia's free black community of profiting off the epidemic, even stealing from the houses of fever victims. In response, Allen and Jones published their own pamphlet in early 1794 refuting these accusations in detail. By including eyewitness testimony of the work black Philadelphians did to treat patients, along with detailed documentation of payments and expenses, the two ministers forced Carey to revise his chronicle of the epidemic in later editions.

Allen and Jones' work was the first copyrighted pamphlet written by black authors in the nation's history. Titled A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793, it documented the racism and poor treatment that free African Americans experienced, even as they played a crucial role in combating the most serious epidemic of disease in the history of the still-young nation.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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When the Yellow Fever Outbreak of 1793 Sent the Wealthy Fleeing Philadelphia | HISTORY

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As some 20,000 retreated to the country (including President Washington and Thomas Jefferson), Philadelphia's free black residents were often enlisted to care for the sick.

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it is a viral disease that infects the liver, and causes like symptoms that are similar to the Flu but can lead to fatal multi-organ failure as well as death occurring from 8-10 days after symptoms show. There are no specific treatments available, but there are a few things where it can help prolong the person's life but does NOT heal them. While due to vaccinations the amount of infected people has significantly decreased after the main epidemic, but the amounts of cases have been increasing over the past 25 years, and the disease has been deemed a lasting disease. Mostly comes from mosquito bites from mosquitos in Africa but also in South America. When traveling, especially to places where the virus is most common, it is very important to get a vaccine because there is a highly likely chance there will be contact with infected mosquitos and or other infected people - since 1996 six travels have died due to the virus after traveling to South America or Africa.

Diseases and Disorders pg. 899

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George Washington - he and his family due to the spread of sickness, and blamed his exit on his wife.

Dr. Benjamin Rush - was the only doctor willing to treat people with this and was the main doctor at the time - he was racist though.

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Diseases and Disorders

Diseases- spider bites- zoonoses

An American Plague

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During the summer of 1793, Yellow Fever hit hard in Philadelphia when thousands of people caught it (1). Many created theories as to what caused Yellow Fever, since no one knew the exact cause, but in an attempt to avoid getting the killer disease many Philadelphians spaced themselves from each-other. They began placing tobacco and vinegar soaked handkerchiefs on their faces (4-5). Many- Nearly all people in Philadelphia fell ill, but around half the cities population were doctors who didn't want to get sick, however a doctor named Dr. Benjamin Rush worked hard in an attempt to help heal those infected because his own sister died from the deadly disease. However Rush's tactics were cruel and crazy, forcing his patients to throw up (8-9). Benjamin Rush and other white physicians, wrong fully thought that African Americans were immune to getting yellow fever due to "biological differences" which were slightly racist. As a result of this, they made and encouraged African Americans to help heal others who were sick, not knowing it would make them sick as well (12-13). After finding out that African Americans were treating sick patients, a man name Mathew Carey wrote a pamphlet essentially saying that these African Americans were stealing from those they treated, but in an effort to prove these allegations were wrong- Benjamin Rush and the African Americans made their own pamphlet getting rid of all these claims. They Provided eye witnesses and documents showing that they weren't stealing (14).

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Alexander Hamilton: got sick while in Philadelphia, along with his wife Eliza Hamilton, however they got treated when they returned back to New York.

Allen & Jones: were writers for the first copyrighted Black Authors pamphlet, and wrote back in response to allegations of African American 'Doctors' stealing from patients.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

yellow fever, acute infectious disease, one of the great epidemic diseases of the tropical world, though it sometimes has occurred in temperate zones as well. The disease, caused by a flavivirus, infects humans, all species of monkeys, and certain other small mammals. The virus is transmitted from animals to humans and among humans by several species of mosquitoes. Yellow fever appears with a sudden onset of fever, chills, headache, backache, nausea, and vomiting. The skin and eyes may appear yellow-a condition known as jaundice and a sign that gives rise to the disease's popular name. There is no specific treatment for those with yellow fever beyond good nursing and supportive care. However, yellow fever is an outstanding example of a completely preventable disease. People can be rendered immune to the virus through vaccination, and outbreaks can be contained by eliminating or controlling mosquito populations. Thanks to such measures, the great yellow fever epidemics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are no more, though the disease is still present in tropical Africa and South America, where access to vaccine is sometimes lacking and the virus is held in vast natural reservoir by forest monkeys.

History

Western Africa has long been regarded as the home of yellow fever, although the first recorded outbreaks of the disease were in central and coastal South America after the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. For the next 300 years, yellow fever, given various names such as Yellow Jack and "the saffron scourge," was one of the great plagues of the New World. The tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas were subjected to devastating epidemics, and serious outbreaks occurred as far north as Philadelphia, New York, and Boston but also as far away from the endemic centres as Spain, France, England, and Italy.

By the late 19th century there were several theories about the cause and transmission of yellow fever. The Scottish medical historian Charles Creighton, writing in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1885), pointed out that "yellow fever, in time and place, has dogged the steps of the African slave trade." Dismissing as "altogether wide of the mark" recent suggestions that the disease might be passed by a microorganism, Dr. Creighton summarized the standard view that yellow fever was "a virulent filth-disease" brought to the New World in ships fouled by the excrement of African slaves:

To establish an epidemic in a distant port, it has been necessary that there should be carried thither a material quantity of the specifically poisonous harbour-filth in a ship's bilges, and that the conditions favourable to its increase and diffusion by fermentation should exist in the new soil.

Treatment consisted of "vigorous measures" to purge the infection: doses of ipecacuanha to induce vomiting, castor oil to loosen the bowels, and enemas of cold water with turpentine to expel gas.

By the 1880s, however, new theories were already gaining acceptance. In 1881 Cuban epidemiologist Carlos Juan Finlay suggested that yellow fever was caused by an infectious agent transmitted by a mosquito now known as Aedes aegypti. In his investigation of Finlay's theory, U.S. Army pathologist and bacteriologist Major Walter Reed demonstrated in 1900 the transmission of yellow fever from one human to another through the bite of A. aegypti. Reed was further able to show that mosquitoes were the only vector of the disease. Reed's discoveries were quickly taken up by American surgeon William Crawford Gorgas, who was able practically to eliminate yellow fever from Havana, Cuba, through the control of the Aedes mosquito. Gorgas's success was repeated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and then in Panama during the building of the Panama Canal. The last outbreak of yellow fever in the United States occurred in 1905, when New Orleans, Louisiana, and other ports of the South were invaded.

In 1927 researchers from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, working in West Africa and the United States, demonstrated that yellow fever was transmitted by a specific virus, and over the next decade a vaccine was developed from attenuated strains of the virus (an achievement for which Rockefeller researcher Max Theiler eventually won a Nobel Prize). A distinct jungle transmission cycle, involving transmission of the virus from animal to animal and from animal to human, was first recognized in 1933, after which it became clear that the yellow fever virus was endemic in huge areas of the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in South America and in the forests of tropical central and western Africa. Outbreaks occurred periodically in these regions until major immunization programs were instituted after World War II. Since then, ravaging epidemics have not broken out as in the past; nevertheless, the World Health Organization estimates that some 30,000 people die each year in areas where yellow fever is endemic. The disease has never crossed to tropical Asia, despite heavy travel to the region and the presence of large monkey populations that would serve as a viral reservoir. Researchers speculate that other flaviviruses endemic in Asia may stimulate some level of immunity to the yellow fever virus, that the ecology of tropical Asia does not favour the transmission cycles of the disease, and that Asian varieties of the Aedes mosquito may not be efficient carriers of the virus.

The course of the disease

There are three substantially different patterns of transmission of the yellow fever virus: (1) urban, or classical, yellow fever, in which transmission is from person to person via the "domestic" (i.e., urban-dwelling) Aedes aegypti mosquito; (2) jungle, or sylvatic, yellow fever, in which transmission is from a mammalian host (usually a monkey) to humans via any one of a number of forest-living mosquitoes (e.g., Haemagogus in South America, A. africanus in Africa); and (3) intermediate, or savannah, yellow fever, in which transmission is from animal to person and from person to person via a number of "semidomestic" mosquitoes (e.g., A. furcifer, A. taylori).

The course of yellow fever is rapid. After the bite of the infecting mosquito, there is an incubation period of several days while the virus multiplies within the body. The onset of symptoms is then abrupt, with headache, backache, rapidly rising fever, nausea, and vomiting. This acute stage lasts two or three days, after which the patient either begins to recover or proceeds to a deeper toxic state marked by high fever, slow pulse rate, and the vomiting of dark blood. Death may occur six or seven days after the onset of symptoms. Because the virus destroys liver cells, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes by deposition of bile pigment) is a common sign in persons with yellow fever.

The yellow fever patient's convalescence is prolonged, but, when recovery does occur, it is complete and is accompanied by a lifelong immunity. For reasons not yet understood, the mortality rate of yellow fever varies greatly. Many persons may experience only a mild infection that lasts a few days.

In the early stages of yellow fever, its symptoms are similar to those of other tropical fevers such as malaria, leptospirosis, or dengue. Diagnosis is usually established by blood tests showing the presence of antibodies to the virus and by the patient's history of having been in an area where the disease is endemic. Treatment is supportive and is designed to correct the acid-base imbalance and electrolyte abnormalities caused by vomiting, heart failure, and kidney derangements. Good nursing and supportive care, particularly in reducing fever, are important both in maintaining comfort and in reducing mortality.

Before the introduction of yellow fever vaccine, the control of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes was the only procedure for preventing occurrence of the disease. Immunization is now the most practical and reliable way to prevent yellow fever in people who live in and travel to areas where it is endemic. Still, control of mosquito populations is an essential component of any program designed to prevent the spread of yellow fever, particularly in urban areas. When people must travel or live in regions where the jungle transmission cycle is maintained, individual immunization is necessary. In these regions, human cases will continue as long as there remain unimmunized persons, for there is no known practical way of eliminating the virus of yellow fever from the animal and mosquito populations of the vast tropical forests in South America and Africa.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Kara Rogers.

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yellow fever | Cause, Symptoms, & Treatment

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Yellow fever, acute infectious disease characterized by fever, headache, backache, nausea, and vomiting. The skin and eyes may appear yellow, a condition known as jaundice, giving rise to the disease's popular name. Yellow fever is caused by a flavivirus. Learn more about its transmission, treatment, and history.

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Yellow Fever mainly happens in Tropical climates/ zones. Yellow Fever is caused by a flavivirus (group of RNA viruses) and affects humans & some animals. The Fever is passed from animals, mainly from different breeds and types of mosquitoes.

SYMPTOMS

fever

chills

headache

backache

nausea

jaundice (Yellowing of skin, eyes, and liver)

There are no cures for Yellow fever, but there is smaller treatments for the symptoms. Now decades later, Yellow Fever is only active in Africa and South America where the tropical climate and rain forests full of forest monkeys pass the disease.

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The death toll from a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia hits 100 on October 11, 1793. By the time it ended, 5,000 people were dead.

Yellow fever, or American plague as it was known at the time, is a viral disease that begins with fever and muscle pain. Next, victims often become jaundiced (hence, the term "yellow" fever), as their liver and kidneys cease to function normally. Some of the afflicted then suffer even worse symptoms. Famous early American Cotton Mather described it as "turning yellow then vomiting and bleeding every way." Internal bleeding in the digestive tract causes bloody vomit. Many victims become delirious before dying.

The first yellow fever outbreaks in the United States occurred in late 1690s. Nearly 100 years later, in the late summer of 1793, refugees from a yellow fever epidemic in the Caribbean fled to Philadelphia. Within weeks, people throughout the city were experiencing symptoms. By the middle of October, 100 people were dying from the virus every day. Caring for the victims so strained public services that the local city government collapsed. Philadelphia was also the seat of the United States government at the time, but federal authorities simply evacuated the city in face of the raging epidemic.

Eventually, a cold front eliminated Philadelphia's mosquito population and the death toll fell to 20 per day by October 26. Today, a vaccine prevents yellow fever in much of the world, though thousands of people still die every year from the disease.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Yellow fever breaks out in Philadelphia | October 11, 1793 | HISTORY

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The death toll from a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia hits 100 on October 11, 1793. By the time it ended, 5,000 people were dead. Yellow fever, or American plague as it was known at the time, is a viral disease that begins with fever and muscle pain.

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In 1793, due to many foreigners traveling from the Caribbean to Philadelphia (a very tropical place) they brought along the disease of Yellow fever, and the mosquitoes that harbored it. Eventually the disease spread through Philadelphia and only ended when a cold front faced the city, and ended the tropical weather that allowed the mosquitoes to pass the disease.

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less then 30% of people who are infected - or bitten by a infected mosquito don't ever get sick,

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as more travel happens and the increase in the species of most commonly infected mosquitos, the fever is spreading to places not as tropical as before. Some of the newly affected areas are North and Central American, the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and Oceania.

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Yellow fever epidemics and mortality in the United States, 1693-1905 - PubMed

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Yellow fever epidemics struck the United States repeatedly in the 18th and 19th centuries. The disease was not indigenous; epidemics were imported by ship from the Caribbean. Prior to 1822, yellow fever attacked cities as far north as Boston, but after 1822 it was restricted to the south. Port citie ...

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Yellow fever epidemics and mortality in the United States, 1693-1905 - PubMed

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Yellow fever epidemics struck the United States repeatedly in the 18th and 19th centuries. The disease was not indigenous; epidemics were imported by ship from the Caribbean. Prior to 1822, yellow fever attacked cities as far north as Boston, but after 1822 it was restricted to the south. Port citie ...

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It was during the hot summer of 1792 when the first major outbreak happened and thousands of people started getting sick. But the original start of yellow fever was in 1600s.                                                                                             After lots of hard time struggling with this there is no actual ending. There has not been any outbreaks going on in the US since 1905. There is still lots of cases in more tropical countries to this day suck as Caribbean, Africa and South America.

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Politics of Yellow Fever in Alexander Hamilton's America

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This exhibit from the National Library of Medicine considers how science and politics helped determine the response to the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.

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The first couple of cases took place in Africa due to it's very tropical climate in the 1600's (1). Eventually the Epidemic spread to the Western Hemisphere because of Slave trades, and from there spread to the Americas since they took part in a lot of trading which spread the disease (1). Spread to the US in late 1600's, and from there to Europe in the 1700's (1). The Epidemic continued to spread around Tropical Countries and Continents, but cases dropped in the US in 1905, and still lingers in Africa, South America, and other tropical continents.

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Yellow fever is an acute viral disease. The yellow fever virus is a Flavivirus with a 400-year history. The disease originated in Africa and then spread to South America in the 1600s. The first reports of yellow fever in the U.S. occurred in Charleston, SC and Philadelphia, PA in 1699. Today, yellow fever is found in South America and Africa and causes around 200,000 infections and 30,000 deaths each year. Fortunately, there is an effective vaccine against yellow fever.

Yellow fever is spread through three transmission cycles; urban, sylvatic, and intermediate. The disease is mainly transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito, Aedes aegypti, and these mosquitoes acquire the virus by feeding on other infected humans. This is known as the urban cycle. The sylvatic, or jungle, cycle involves transmission of the virus through non-human primates in the wild. Humans can then become infected by these mosquitoes when visiting or working in the jungle. Vectors involved in the jungle cycle include Aedes africanus in Africa or mosquitoes of the genus Haemagogus and Sabethes in South America. An intermediate cycle exists where semi-domestic mosquitoes of the Aedes species serve as vectors, and both human and non-human primates serve as reservoirs for the disease.

Symptoms of Yellow Fever

Most people infected will experience no symptoms.

For those who do become ill, symptoms include fever, chills, headache, nausea and loss of appetite. Other symptoms may include muscle pains, particularly in the back.

Most patients recover after about 4 days, though approximately 15% experience a second, more serious, phase of the illness.

The second phase of yellow fever involves high fever and liver damage that causes yellow skin. Failure of multiple organs may occur as well. Mortality rate among severe cases of the disease is estimated at 20 to 50%.

Treatment of Yellow Fever Infection

There is no cure for yellow fever.

Treatment is symptomatic and involves making the patient more comfortable.

Yellow Fever Vaccine

There is a vaccine for the disease, and it is strongly recommended or required for those traveling to high-risk areas in South America and Africa.

The CDC maintains a list of specific countries where yellow fever vaccination is required or recommended for travelers. The vaccine is recommended for those nine months of age and older. Reactions to the vaccine are typically rare and mild, though there are risks of more severe reactions. Travelers should consult their healthcare provider to discuss vaccination if they are planning to travel to areas at risk for the disease.

Yellow Fever and the United States

Yellow fever was introduced in the U.S. in the late 1600s, with major epidemics occurring from 1793 through 1905. Today, endemic areas are restricted to Africa and South America. However, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are found in the southern coastal states and the risk of individuals becoming infected while traveling and then returning to the U.S. does exist.

A Global View of Yellow Fever

In sub-Saharan Africa, yellow fever occurs in regular epidemic patterns and accounts for the vast majority of all human cases and deaths attributable to yellow fever. However, there are also periodic, more unpredictable outbreaks of urban yellow fever throughout the continent. At least 32 African countries are now considered at risk of yellow fever, with a total population of 610 million people at risk.

Yellow fever is also endemic in 10 South and Central American countries and on several Caribbean islands. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela are considered at greatest risk. Although the disease usually causes only sporadic cases and small outbreaks, nearly all major urban centers in the American tropics have been re-infested with Aedes aegypti. Due to the loss of organized mosquito control programs and subsequent re-infestation of the primary vector, Latin America is now at greater risk of urban epidemics than at any time in the past 50 years.
Map is from the CDC website. Current as ofJuly 2015.This map, which aligns with recommendations also published by the World Health Organization (WHO), is an updated version of the the 2010 map created by the Informal WHO Working Group on the Geographic Risk of Yellow Fever.
Know Your Aedes Mosquiotes

Aedes aegypti, the yellow fever mosquito, is characterized by a silvery-white "lyre-shaped" pattern of scales on its thorax. It is a peridomestic species found not far from human dwellings. They are primarily early morning or late afternoon feeders, but females can also take a bloodmeal at night under artificial illumination. Typically, Ae.aegypti fly only a few hundred yards from their breeding sites.

The species utilize containers to breed, and educating the public on how to eliminate their backyard larval habitats is one key to keeping these invaders under control. Larvae can be found in a variety of artificial containers, including buckets, tires, cans, and flower pots. Homeowners should also inspect rain gutters for clogs, gardening equipment, and backyard children's toys.

Controlling Aedes aegypti and Yellow Fever

An I ntegrated Mosquito Management (IMM) program is essential to helping prevent mosquito bites and transmission of serious vector diseases in the United States. As part of an effective IMM program, VDCI recommends a 4-pronged approach to target all phases of the mosquito's life cycle.

1: Public Education
Mosquito control professionals can only do so much, and this is why we rely on a well-educated public in order to have a successful mosquito control program. Educating the public empowers people to take control of the mosquitoes breeding in their back yard and gives them the tools needed to reduce mosquito annoyance.

2: Surveillance
Surveillance allows us to detect mosquito species in a given area as well as any changes in populations. With this valuable data, we are able to more effectively time larvicide applications and more accurately target adulticide activities.

3: Larval Mosquito Control
Our trained field technicians inspect both known sources of standing water and any newly discovered sites for the presence of mosquito larvae. Eliminating mosquitoes prior to their becoming adults is an important element of controlling mosquito-borne diseases because it stops mosquitoes before they acquire the virus and have the opportunity to transmit it to people.

4: Adult Mosquito Control
When necessary, adulticide applications are conducted with EPA-approved pesticides that are used in the safest and most environmentally sound way possible. Additionally, VDCI regularly tests adult mosquitoes and takes all appropriate measures to prevent them from developing resistance; thereby, minimizing the number of applications needed to control the population.

VDCI is a company built on the foundations of public health, ethics, professionalism, and technical expertise. We establish vector management programs that are based on an understanding of the underlying vector's ecology and rooted in the current science of environmentally sound control measures.

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Yellow Fever: Education, Public Health, Integrated Mosquito Management

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VDCI is committed to protecting public health. Learn more about yellow fever and how integrated mosquito management can improve the health of a community.

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Benjamin Rush (the main physician during this time period and outbreak period) was a hot topic regarding the Yellow Fever because in September of 1793 he announced that he had found a cure for the fever. His treatment was based on intense bleeding and purging with calomel (mercurous chloride), and claimed that through this cure, 8 out of 10 victims could be saved. Many historians of medicine rejected the idea and said it was impossible for that amount of success. It was seen in a study by John Harvey, where he addressed the epidemic in Philadelphia, he found that Rush's "treatment" was basically a death warrant for the patients.

After this discovery that the cure was causing more death, the reliability and trust within him was decreasing and the affected areas were beginning to suffer more without a good doctor. It seemed that his 'cure' was starting to just add to the death count rather than cure patients. His treatment has long sense stopped being used and there was no evidence that there was anyone cured by his treatment.

Some of his treatment was forced vomiting, and bloodletting (the surgical removal of some parts of the patients blood.)

Rush and his sister also fell ill during his extensive work but while he was able to recover, his sister passed away.

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in Philadelphia, 1793, the first known and identified cases was of two workers. They were seen with high fevers, seizure attacks, vomiting, and jaundiced skin. Between August and November of 1793, over 5,000 people died due to this illness. Scientist could not figure out what the cause of the illness was, resulting in the mass amounts of death during the summer and fall of 1793.

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The term Yellow Fever actually encompasses more than one disease, it is made up of several similar sickness such as West Nile virus and dengue fever.

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Along with Benjiman Rush, there were a few other Docters who delt with cases of yellow fever, and after several patients came in with the same symptoms the doctors met up and figured out that it was another outbreak like in 1762.

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Usually, the first symptoms of the fever are typically chills, weakness, headaches, vomiting every now and then, and shortness of breath. After this first bought of symptoms (lasts usually 3-4 days), it diminishes, leaving altogether for some. If this is not the end of the illness, then the next coming symptoms consists of; frequent vomiting with the look and consistency of coffee grounds (came from stale blood hemorrhaged in the stomach); dark yellow colored skin and nails; and incoherent as well as losing consciousness and often times bleeding from the eyes and nose - then the patient would pass away. This prosses took about a week.

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the people believed that by keeping distance from others, avoiding hand shaking, and wearing face coverings/cloths soaked in vinegar and or smoked tobacco they could avoid breathing in the contaminated air and thus not get sick.

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Alexander Hamilton got sick near the beginning of the epidemic, and soon traveled away to his summer home a few miles away. His wife fell ill as well, but fortunately they both recovered under the care of Dr. Edwards Stevens.

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Dr. Edward stevens approach to the possible cure was much less violent and more radially available for most patients - cold baths, ingesting large amounts of quinoa, drinking Madeira wine, and hot brandy.

Dr. Rush took to more common practices (in the medical field) - Bloodletting, forced vomiting, and several other painful procedures. Neither method proved to cure the illness and mass amounts of people died and got sick. By November of 1793 the amounts of cases finally subsided but had already killed about 5,000 residents or about one-tenth of the Philadelphian population, and infected hundreds of thousands of others.

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After the disease settled a little, lots of research was done on it, all without a definite cause, until another outbreak took place among the Spanish soldiers fighting in the Mexican-American war, and this is when Dr. Walter Reed discovered it came from mosquitos.

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(MOMS PROSPECTIVE)                                                          I dont even know what to do anymore. Everything is so hard and I dont want to have my daughter see her father like this. She is very scared but does not want to leave my side. Finally the doctor I called 10 days ago showed up and I am scared I cant raise our daughter all on my own. It is always dark now in the light is to bright for my husband and he yells when it is on. I cant cook anything because he wont eat it and it all goes to waste. It is also hard not getting any of his income because he is to sick to work. Me and my daughter left after the doctor showed up scared that my daughter would see anything so we went to the market and I am just trying to get my mind off of everything happening. I just dont know what I would do if it is something like yellow fever or cancer because I cant survive without him and sure not my daughter either. I hope everything is going well back at the house. Entertaining my daughter is hard because all she is doing is asking questions about her father and I cant give her the answer my heart wont let me. Having his presence being gone will change our life's forever. He is my true love and my only love.

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The people rush by me, coughing, panting, all to the same place; Marine Hospital. They are tripping over themselves, vomit litters the floor, yellow eyes look me down, but as they keep looking, I see, they aren't looking at me, they are looking at death. In their mind, their eyes, they see death.

I feel strangled and caught in a web as I stand in the middle of the chaos filled street. How can everyone be so plagued, so sick? What happened in the matter of only a few days?

I watch as a man falls to the ground, vomiting, blood dripping from his eyes and nose. I can't look away, because what if thats what I will eventually look like?

Another man falls to the ground, a woman, a child, another, another, another. They are tinged yellow, a mound of vomit in front of them, hands wrapped tight around their stomachs and pain etched into their young faces. Somehow, the vinegar soaked cloth over my face seems a speck of dust in a wide room.

I stand still for a few seconds, to disgusted to move - I pick up my feet, and run, run, run. Away from the madness, the chaos, the sickness, the lives lost. I carry my feet to my home, but it's not far enough, not strong enough, not safe enough. There is no escape from a sickness that gets under your skin, under your feet and trips you. Again and again.

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through ocean-going trade, yellow fever struck England as well as many other places like Brazil, and knowing that patients that had the fever had to be secluded from other patients and the population, many hospitals had separate areas for them. Greenwich Hospital in England had yellow fever patients dressed in jackets with yellow patches so others knew to watch out for them, they were nicknamed "Yellow Jackets". The hospital area that was for them also had a yellow flag flying over the quarantined area, which was nicknamed the "Yellow Jack". (Viruses, Plagues, & History, pg. 104)

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after Rush and a few other doctors came together to meet and talk about the increase of yellow fever cases(it was not known as or known that it was yellow fever at this time yet), the discovered that it was the same sickness outbreak as in 1762.

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It was the hot summer of 1793 thousands of people started getting very sick. The different symptoms peoples were have are suck as fevers and chills jaundiced skin, stomach pains and vomit which was black  tinted from blood. This quickly started consuming the city of Philadelphia Politian's started debating the disease's origins and treatments. When trying to figure out the causes of the sickness that they did not know of yet, Alexzander Hamilton and other federalist closed ports and restricted immigration so there would be no further spread.

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Politics of Yellow Fever in Alexander Hamilton's America

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This exhibit from the National Library of Medicine considers how science and politics helped determine the response to the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.

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in the 1790's, before many cures came about, many cities within England suffered through smallpox, and Yellow Fever. These hit cities hard because of the close proximity of the population. At the time, there was no cure for Yellow Fever and most that got it would pass away. The countryside however stayed mostly free of these viral diseases because people had more sanitary environments, less people around them, and cleaner air.

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the epidemic was first seen in late July of 1793, and lasted to November of the same year.

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Abstract

In this commentary, I take up the question of why beliefs in fundamental, innate racial differences between Black and White people's bodies persist in medical discourse, despite evidence to the contrary.

I locate the origin of some of these beliefs in the infamous yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1793. During that early public health crisis, White physicians and lay people erroneously thought that Black people were immune to yellow fever because of their race. I then highlight the efforts of Philadelphia's Black leaders during the epidemic-namely Absalom Jones and Richard Allen-to challenge the belief in fundamental and innate differences between Blacks and Whites.

I conclude by asking us to consider how the false belief that there is something peculiar about Black people's bodies has become a feature, not an aberration, in the production of medical knowledge. Indeed, I point out how medical experimentation in the 20th century and in the marketing of new drugs in the 21st century have been buttressed by this persistent yet incorrect assumption that innate racial differences exist.

Mentions of slavery and the shadow that its legacy has cast on the medical, public health, and allied health professions in the United States have crept into national discussions on racial disparities in health outcomes, treatment, and access to health care. This is clearly illustrated by the 2016 study on racial bias in pain assessment by Hoffman et al. published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.¹ Some of the study's findings include widespread beliefs among White medical residents and lay people "that blacks have thicker skin than do white people or that black people's blood coagulates more quickly than white people's blood."1(p4298) Hoffman et al. point out the longevity of beliefs that hold Blacks and Whites to be fundamentally and biologically different. Their study suggests that these beliefs have their roots in claims made by "scientists, physicians, and slave owners alike to justify slavery."1(p4297) More to the point, they acknowledge how unethical medical experiments, such as the 40-year Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male that was conducted by US Public Health Services, were premised on these false ideas.¹

Explicitly naming how these beliefs have harmed people who identify as Black or African American is a step toward realizing equity in health and health care. However, it is worth noting that these damaging views about innate racial differences were not solely the product of slavery apologists-one need not have been aligned with slavery to believe in the myth of innate and fundamental racial differences-a point I discuss at length. Focusing too much on slavery and the bald racism associated with it creates the illusion that these beliefs are aberrations-unfortunate and rare relics of a bygone era. As the historical record and contemporary medical discourse reveal, these beliefs are not aberrations; they are built into the ethos of medical knowledge production.

We continue to inhabit a milieu in which people's bodies are marked as different because of their race. Race, as it is constituted by superficial bodily traits like skin color, has emerged as the most obvious sign of difference. Furthermore, race has been viewed as a proxy for deeper innate difference-its inexactness notwithstanding.²⁻⁴ When racial disparities are studied and reported on, questions often arise about whether there might be something innate in Black people's bodies that make them different from White people's bodies. This approach encourages scrutiny of Black people's bodies, their habits and customs, etc., and arises from an assumption that Black people are indeed different in comparison with other races. Instead, we might consider viewing disparities as a function of how Black people's bodies have been regarded by the medical profession-shifting our efforts away from trying to understand what might be different about a Black person's body to trying to understand the contexts in which that body exists.

OF DISEASE AND RACIAL DIFFERENCES

In addition to identifying racial disparities and combating inequities in health care and medical treatment, we should consider reflecting on the genealogy of damaging ideas about innate racial difference. Doing so, as a means of gaining greater clarity about why these ideas persist and perhaps where they came from in the first place, might help halt their spread. Re-examining the now infamous yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1793 is instructive in this regard. Many firsthand accounts of the epidemic reveal a widely held view that Black people were naturally immune to yellow fever because of their race (they were not). A smaller number of accounts challenge that view. One source, in particular, penned by two of Philadelphia's well-known, free, Black abolitionists, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, underscores how people of African descent engaged in discussions about racial difference (see "A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793" (p. 1336 in this issue of AJPH).

In the 18th century, yellow fever was not yet understood as a vector-borne disease-it was, however, known as a deadly scourge of the eastern and southeastern American seaboard.⁵ While some accounts of yellow fever epidemics referenced Black victims of the disease, many White commentators fixated on Blacks' seemingly low mortality and morbidity from the disease.⁶ Over time, the belief that yellow fever was a disease to which Black people were immune, because of their race, took hold-and such a belief became fodder for slavery apologists.⁷

In mainland North America, this belief gained traction in part because of an observation made by Charleston, South Carolina-based physician John Lining. In his posthumously published treatise describing Charleston's 1748 yellow fever epidemic, he noted: "There is something very singular in the constitution of the Negroes, which renders them not liable to this fever."8(p7) Lining, well regarded among his medical peers, had observed both Black and White populations during yellow fever epidemics and was likely a credible observer. Lining may truly have encountered immune Black people (he served as a port physician in Charleston and likely saw newly arrived captured Africans), but that might have been attributable to them acquiring immunity through previous exposure, not because of their race. With a disease like yellow fever, which was endemic to parts of Western Africa (a site of embarkation for many captive Africans), the oversight about the possibility of Black people's previous exposure proved disastrous.⁵

Lining's claim about innate racial immunity (made only about yellow fever; he believed that Blacks and Whites shared susceptibility to other fevers) proved to be an enduring one-so enduring that it was repeated during the yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia in 1793. The well-known patriot, antislavery activist, and physician Benjamin Rush not only repeated the claim but also incorporated it into the logic he used when he penned a letter to Richard Allen, a founder of the Free African Society, asking him and the city's Black inhabitants to stay behind and help during the epidemic. Rush assured Allen that yellow fever would "pass by" people of color.⁹ Allen, after some deliberation with other leaders of the free Black community, acceded to Rush's request only to find that Rush's claim (and, indirectly, Lining's claim) of innate Black immunity to yellow fever was wrong. Allen contracted yellow fever, but recovered.

The pamphlet Allen and Jones penned to refute allegations that Blacks took advantage of Philadelphia's White inhabitations during the epidemic, stated

to this day a generally received opinion in this city, that our colour was not so liable to the sickness as the whites. We hope our friends will pardon us for setting this matter in its true state. The public were informed that in the West Indies and other places where this terrible malady had been, it was observed the blacks were not affected with it. Happy would it have been for you, and much more so for us, if this observation had been verified by our experience.10(p15)

Here is one of the earliest written accounts from Blacks vigorously and publicly refuting false ideas about their bodies. Rush would go on to admit his error in a publication about yellow fever published several years after the epidemic, but he adopted the view that even if Black people suffered from yellow fever, they suffered less than Whites. "The disease was lighter in them, than in the white people," Rush wrote. "I met with no case of hemorrhage in a black patient."11(p73) Rush's backtracking did little to stop people from believing in innate Black immunity to yellow fever, as this view would continue to circulate well into the 19th and even 20th centuries.¹²

Philadelphia's 1793 yellow fever epidemic is instructive for revealing how people, even those to whom slavery was an anathema, could propagate harmful statements about Black people's bodies. Rush's opposition to slavery did not necessarily mean that he viewed Black and White people's bodies physiologically equal. This view is evident in his assessment of Blacks suffering from yellow fever. It is even clearer in his 1799 essay, "Observations Intended to Favour a Supposition That the Black Color (As It Is Called) of the Negroes Is the Leprosy."¹³ Aside from literally pathologizing Black people's skin, Rush listed a host of rationales for why Black people were Black, complete with broad generalizations about Black people's bodies-"The big lip, and flat nose so universal among the negroes, are symptoms of the leprosy."13(p293) The desire to see and explain innate racial difference was hard to shake.

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

We can take comfort that medical discussions about race and racial disparities no longer proceed along these lines. However, we still need to exercise caution in how we talk about racial disparities in health. To be clear, it is appropriate and necessary to evaluate a variety of individual characteristics, even race, when assessing health outcomes, but how we do that makes all the difference. Without explicitly naming racism as a possible factor in explaining poor health outcomes for racial minorities, we run the risk of framing health disparities in such a way that draws our attention to the bodies of those suffering under the disparities rather than drawing our attention to why the disparities exist in the first place.

For example, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Web site notes, "Racial disparities persist. The risk of pregnancy-related deaths for black women is 3 to 4 times higher than those of white women," it correctly identifies a glaring health problem facing Black women.¹⁴ While the CDC and public health officials suggest elsewhere that racial discrimination and the chronic stresses associated with it might be responsible for this startling figure, neither racism nor discrimination are named explicitly as possible contributing factors for this grim statistic. The word "racism" does not appear on the CDC Web site in the discussion of pregnancy-related deaths. Explicitly identifying racism and systemic discrimination against Black women in this context as potential factors correlated with their high maternal mortality shifts our attention to larger structural problems both inside and outside the realm of medicine and away from any potential innate biological reason for the disparity. Identifying the problem with a comparison is a step in the right direction; however, more can be done to signal a deep appreciation of how Black women have to navigate a society with structural racism built into it.

Indeed, how we invoke racial comparisons or racial disparities in medical discussions matters. This is particularly important when one considers that claims about innate racial difference have emerged under the guise of righting past wrongs. For example, in 2005, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a combination of isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine hydrochloride (BiDil), which carries the distinction of being the first FDA-approved drug for people who self-identity as Black or African American. Despite the support for BiDil from Black physicians, many of whom hailed its approval as a step toward improving the lives of Blacks with congestive heart failure, the drug's marketing and history remains problematic. BiDil's creators originally presented the drug to the FDA for use in the general patient population, but it failed to gain approval because of statistical issues with early trials; thus, it did not start its career as a drug designed for Black people.¹⁵ Once approved, it was hailed as a bold step toward eliminating racial disparities. One of the drug's developers seemed to suggest that it was unclear why BiDil worked so well in Black people; nevertheless, they were willing to go along with the idea that the unknown reason was biological, possibly innate. Despite the good that BiDil may do, its approval sanctions the dangerous idea that congestive heart failure is a different disease in Black people than in White people for biological reasons.¹⁶ Many scholars, including Susan Reverby, Pamela Sankar, and Jonathan Kahn, have pointed out that BiDil's initial marketing suggested that there was something peculiar but also not quite well understood about Black people's bodies that makes them respond to this drug.¹⁷⁻¹⁹

When we consider the 1793 yellow fever epidemic and other past instances of incorrect assumptions about fundamental biological differences between Black and White people's bodies, a pattern emerges-one that is not the result of a few aberrant racist claims. Much has obviously changed in how we view race now-we are more attuned to implicit bias in the health care setting. Nevertheless, the impulse to see difference rather than sameness in medical discourse and practice persists. In their 2016 study, Hoffman et al. conclude: "white laypeople and medical students and residents [held] false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites. . . . racial bias in pain perception is associated with racial bias in pain treatment recommendations."1(p4297)

These findings become even more arresting for the uncanny resemblance they bear to 18th-century views on Black people's pain tolerance. Rush, well-meaning in his intentions, did not hesitate to share medical lore about Black people's supposedly high pain tolerance when explaining why Black skin was attributable to leprosy: "This insensibility belongs in a peculiar manner to the negroes. Dr. Moseley says, 'they are void of sensibility to a surprising degree. . . . They bear surgical operations much better than white people, and what would be a cause of insupportable pain to a white man, a negro would almost disregard.'"13(p292) Here Rush repeated the words of an esteemed medical peer, Benjamin Moseley, as he made the case for innate Black insensitivity to pain. Moseley's observation was likely politically motivated, but that does not account for why Rush cited it as evidence in his essay on Black skin as leprosy.²⁰ There are no data to suggest that Hoffman's respondents cited Rush's and Moseley's medical writings as the point of origin for their wrongheaded views, and yet, somehow, they have managed to invoke an ideology of race from a bygone era.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank Theodore Brown, Vanessa Northington Gamble, and the anonymous reviewers.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The author has no conflicts of interest.

Footnotes

See also Brown, p. 1309, and Hogarth, p. 1337.

REFERENCES

1. Hoffman KM, Trawalter S, Axt JR, Oliver MN. Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between Blacks and Whites. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016;113(16):4296-4301. [[ PMC free article] [ PubMed] Google Scholar]

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7. Tidyman P. A sketch of the most remarkable diseases of the Negroes of the southern states, with an account of the method of treating them, accompanied by physiological observations. Philadelphia J Med Phys Sci. 1826;3(6):306-338. [ Google Scholar]

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9. Rush B to Allen R. 2 September 1793. Rush Family Papers 1748-1876. Vols. 35-38. The Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA.

10. Jones A, Allen R. A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia and a Refutation of Some Censures Thrown Upon Them in Some Late Publications. Philadelphia, PA: William W. Woodward; 1794. [ Google Scholar]

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Articles from American Journal of Public Health are provided here courtesy of American Public Health Association

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The Myth of Innate Racial Differences Between White and Black People's Bodies: Lessons From the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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In this commentary, I take up the question of why beliefs in fundamental, innate racial differences between Black and White people's bodies persist in medical discourse, despite evidence to the contrary.I locate the origin of some of these beliefs ...

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Many people and doctors believed that African Americans had thicker skin and their blood would clean out any sickness's quicker than Whites would. As a result of this, African Americans were "encouraged" to be doctors and treat White patients. Additionally, doctors eventually realized that African Americans could just as easily catch Yellow Fever, as Whites could.