Medical advice from a father

Daniel Smith, a pharmacist north of the city, sent drugs to his son in Philadelphia as well as this note. I think this was the same Dr. Treat who was the port inspector in New York City who died of yellow fever there in 1795.

Hollingsworth letters

The Hollingsworth brothers in Maryland, both merchants, tried to persuade their brother in Philadelphia to leave the city with his family. At the same time, they defended the efforts to screen all from Philadelphia who came to their cities.

November 9 Independent Gazetteer

Two letters on the epidemic, one lamenting the feud among the doctors and the other on mistakes in the lists of victims.

August newspaper reports on refugees from Santa Domingo (Haiti)

This is a scan of a poor photocopy of a New York newspaper that has the report from the August 9th public meeting in Philadelphia deciding on how the funds collected for the refugees were to be  distributed. There is also a report from Norfolk mentioning a shipload of refugees heading to Baltimore.

Medical letter September 7

Newspapers in the late 18th century were less able than today's media to reflect the current anxieties of the day. By September 7, 1793, the outlines of epidemic were evident and the first wave of panic about to begin. But the lead article in the American Daily Advertiser was a discussion of the causes of typhus by an anonymous author Araeteus, Jr. (Araeteus was a celebrated Ancient Greek doctor.) However, it was apropos in this sense: it sought to prove that putrefaction making the air impure caused typhus. Benjamin Rush would soon argue that yellow fever took hold in the city in the same way.

On the same page as the letter of Araeteus, Jr., is a report from Charleston, South Carolina, on the aid that city was giving to refugees from Santa Domingo who had just landed in the city. Modern historians generally blame those refugees for bringing yellow fever to Philadelphia. This article reminds us that refugees went to other American ports but only Philadelphia had a yellow fever epidemic in 1793.

Be sure to scroll down to the large images of the newspaper.

Independent Gazetteer August 17

Just prior to the outbreak of the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic, the weekly Independent Gazetteer shared a report on an outbreak of "flux" in the vicinity of Georgetown, Maryland, (soon to be part of the District of Columbia.) The report suggested up to 500 people had died. The flux was most likely dysentery. The report of the disease came with suggested remedies for it. This was characteristic of how diseases were reported in the 1790s.

The Quakers' Anti-Vice Petition

When the Pennsylvania legislature met after the epidemic ended, the Quakers tried to make banning plays its first order of business. The petition below was widely circulated but failed to persuade the legislature.