American Epidemic: Philadelphia's Yellow Fever of 1793

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

Bruce Carlson

News, Politics, History

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

5,000 or more people died in Philadelphia between August and November of 1793. Thousands of others, including the President, fled the capital of the country. In this recast of a 2014 episode, we look at this epidemic and the reaction to it at the time, what healthcare looked like in the 1790's, and other topics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an AirWave Media Podcast.
0:05.0	With a merchant ship from the Caribbean sailed towards the Port of Philadelphia.
0:09.0	1793, there was a strange occurrence.
0:13.0	No one was there to receive the ship, and no one to unload the cargo.
0:30.0	There would be no teamsters to take the cargo around, no warehouses open, no stores to sell the items.
0:42.0	All of which didn't matter, since there were no citizens in the cobblestone streets of what was then the nation's capital to purchase anything anyway.
0:53.0	People were dying in Philadelphia, and no one knew why.
1:02.0	It seemed to start on arch and water streets near the docks when a dock worker developed jaundice, turned yellow, and died.
1:12.0	Soon many others did, developing a fever and then many other ghastly symptoms.
1:19.0	The disease skipped over the wharf, and into the neighborhoods first the ones near the docks, but then all parts of the city.
1:28.0	It skipped over houses, attacked families, the weak, and the strong, the wealthy, and the poor.
1:38.0	Elizabeth Drinker was a Quaker woman who kept a diary and lived in the city throughout this time.
1:45.0	August 16th there has been an unusual amount of funerals here.
1:50.0	August 18th.
1:51.0	Tis seldom any one of family comes to stay a night with us, but they bring an account of the death of one of our citizens.
1:59.0	August 21st.
2:00.0	Eight or ten persons buried out of water street between race and arch, many sick in our neighborhood.
2:07.0	August 23rd.
2:09.0	A fever prevails in the city, upwards of seventy persons sick, Tis a serious and alarming time.
2:17.0	August 30th.
2:19.0	The ringing of the bells for the dead is now forbidden.
2:23.0	The doors of the houses where infection is are ordered to be marked, to prevent any but the necessary from entering.
	...

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