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Yellow Fever Resources. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania offers a wide range of sources from original letters to prominent members involved in the epidemic such as Dr. Benjamin Rush, to visuals of Philadelphia from the time of Yellow Fever, as well as a list of all persons admitted to Bush Hill Hospital during the epidemic.
be diagnosed as a fever for the back lands of Pennsylvania. Time and research have identified the anopheles as the little devil that depopulated Philadelphia in 1793. From the perspective of a century and a half we may also see what induced the land fever of that decade.
- Norman B. Wilkerson
- 1953
From deadly outbreaks of yellow fever and influenza to the development of the nation’s oldest quarantine station and a vaccine for polio, Pennsylvania has been the site not only of destruction caused by deadly epidemics but of innovations in public health that arose in response to them.
This map records the intensity of the fever, with darker colored lines marking the streets with highest mortality. Yellow fever was most deadly near the northern wharves, where poorer people lived, and where Hell Town was located.
In 1793, Philadelphia was struck with the worst outbreak of Yellow Fever ever recorded in North America. The fever took a devastating toll on the city as nearly 5,000 individuals died, among them close to 400 African Americans.
This 1797 map still depicts a city with neighborhoods clustered closer to the waterfront, where mosquitoes could easily spread yellow fever among the people of Philadelphia. Philadelphia proved an ideal climate for the spread of yellow fever in the summer of 1793.
Aug 1, 1998 · 1 min read. The Philadelphia Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. One of the first major epidemics of the disease in the U.S., it devastated America's early capital. It also had lasting repercussions...
