A melancholy scene of devastation: the public response to the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic

During the past two decades the fear of infectious epidemic diseases has resurfaced. The appearance of AIDS as well as familiar bacterial infections that have become resistant to antibiotic therapy has undermined the postWorld War II optimism that epidemic infectious diseases were under control and no longer posed a threat to humanity. Moreover, growing recognition that potentially deadly viruses from virgin areas could spread throughout the world within a matter of hours has also added to public apprehensions. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that scholars would once again begin to explore the experiences with and social responses to past epidemics. In A melancholy scene of devastation a group of scholars have turned their attention to the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Although the outbreak of 1793 did not have the highest mortality rate, it nevertheless has fascinated both contemporaries and subsequent scholars. Mathew Carey's A short account of the malignant fever, lately prevalent in Philadelphia, published in late 1793, sold over 10,000 copies, an extraordinary figure for that period. John H Powell's classic Bring out your dead: the great plague ofyellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793 (1949) offered a dramatic portrait of an epidemic that resulted in perhaps 5,000 deaths and brought the mechanism of government to a virtual halt. Powell delineated a struggle between villains and heroes. The former included the disease as well as Benjamin Rush and his irrational therapeutic approach (bloodletting) that elevated theory over experience. The heroes were those members of the pragmatic middle class who took over from the nonfunctioning public authorities and ensured that vital services would be restored and care provided for the sick and dying. Powell's story was one of tragedy and redemption; in the end human heroes prevailed. All historical interpretations, at least to a certain extent, reflect the milieu inhabited by their authors. It is not surprising that contemporary scholars choose to de-emphasize Powell's heroic themes and to offer quite different analyses. In the opening chapter J Worth Estes delineates the manner in which yellow fever was understood and treated in the context of late eighteenth-century medical humoral and solidist thinking. David Paul Nord argues that the Federal Gazette provided a window into the thinking of ordinary people and therefore served to reconstruct the community bonds nearly severed by the epidemic. Sally F Griffith's study of Mathew Carey's tract suggests that his tale of disaster and community redemption became a model that shaped the ways in which future Americans responded to natural disasters. Jacquelyn Miller maintains that Rush's therapeutic approach reflected his political ideology that emphasized balance and harmony and his fear of fragmentation. Michael McMahon notes that the preoccupation of historians with physicians has led them to overlook the role of public officials and others in dealing with urban public health problems. Phillip Lapansky details the role of the AfricanAmerican community in the crisis and the dramatic rebuttal of Carey's allegation that many of its members engaged in profiteering. The volume also reprints (with a postscript) Martin Pernick's classic essay in 1972 dealing with the relationship between political ideology