Fever 1793 - Laurie Halse Anderson

Pennsylvania Quakers forbid their members from owning slaves or participating in the slave trade. Quakers have a fundamental belief in the equality of all people, which led them to actively campaign against racism.

Dr. Rush was elected to the Medical Staff of Pennsylvania Hospital. Dr. Rush gave patients mercury, calomel, and jalap to make them throw up and have diarrhea. He drained them of blood to get rid of "pestilence" in their bodies. Medical experts say that Rush's treatment killed many of his patients.

Gradual emancipation laws called for a phasing out of slavery. With its statue, Pennsylvania became one of the first states to enact such legislation.

The Free African Society was founded by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. The society was founded as a mutual aid organization devoted to helping widowed, ill, or out-of-work African Americans. It was also dedicated to abolishing slavery. Society members worked day and night to relieve the suffering of yellow fever victims. They organized people to visit the sick, to care for them and bury them if they died. Doctors at the time believed African Americans could not get the yellow fever, but were eventually proven wrong when many began to fall sick with the disease.

The inauguration took place in New York City. Washington took the presidential oath of office, becoming president of the United States of America. He would eventually live in Philadelphia after becoming president.

Girard and Peter Helm oversaw the temporary asylum for sick at Bush Hill. They installed Dr. Jean Deveze, one of the Santo Domingan refugees, as its primary physician. Deveze kept his patients clean, comfortable, and prescribed limited dosages of quinine and stimulants. His methods were generally more effective than the bleeding and purging prescribed by Dr. Rush, and helped saved many desperately ill people.

The French Revolution brought refugees into Philadelphia, and with them came the yellow fever. However because the French had delt with the yellow fever in their homeland, so they brought outside information and practices on the disease that would save many. French also influenced social life when their fashion and language became very popular. The refugees opened dancing academies, fencing salons, and hairdressing parlors.

On January 9th the first Hot-Air balloon was flown in the U.S.
 On the streets of Philadelphia citizens watched as Jean Pierre Blanchard was blown in his hot-air balloon 5,800 feet in the air for fifteen miles. His plans for a second flight in he city were ruined by the yellow fever epidemic.