WPVI-TV, 6ABC Philadelphia Presents "Fever - 1793"
----
With a population of approximately 55,000 in 1793, Philadelphia was America's largest city, its capital and its busiest port. The summer of that year was unusually dry and hot. The water levels of streams and wells were dangerously reduced, providing an excellent breeding ground for insects. By July the city's inhabitants were remarking on the extraordinary number of flies and mosquitoes that swarmed around the dock area. That same month, a trickle of refugees escaping political turmoil in the Caribbean Islands became a torrent of thousands as ship after ship unloaded its human cargo on Philadelphia's docks. Unbeknownst to the city's inhabitants, all the necessary ingredients for an unprecedented health disaster were now in place.
With them, the Caribbean refuges brought Yellow Fever. Philadelphia's ravenous mosquitoes provided the perfect vehicle for spreading the disease by first lunching on an infected victim and then biting a healthy one. The first fatalities appeared in July and the numbers grew steadily.
Unaware of the link between the mosquito and the disease's progress, Philadelphia's medical community was dumbfounded. Dr. Benjamin Rush, the city's leading physician and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, advised citizens to flee the city.
A good portion of the population, along with members of Congress, President George Washington and his Cabinet, abandoned the city and moved to Maryland (Now Washington DC). The disease subsided and finally disappeared with the arrival of cold weather in November. It is estimated over 2,000 died.
