Krista Hutley
LIS 303
November 17, 2003
Nonfiction critique
The title tells it all in this gripping and informative look at the yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793. Murphy chronicles the beginning and spread of the disease that raged out of control in Philadelphia from Saturday, August 3, 1793 to January of 1794 (and then reappeared successive times over the next 100+ years, in Philadelphia and in other places) from both a broad historical view and a personalized “right in the thick of it” view. He introduces and characterizes important people and groups—Dr. Benjamin Rush, George Washington, Mayor Clarkson, the Free African Society, the Bush Hill hospital—in three-dimensional terms. He also covers the symptoms of the disease itself, the medical practices and beliefs of the time, the folkloristic home remedies used to treat the disease, the city's environment in terms of water, sewage, food supply, and the city's political, class, and race struggles. Through it all, he offers an in-depth look of what it was like to live in the nation's then capital during this time of crisis. He then jumps forward to discuss other yellow fever outbreaks and how it eventually came to pass that the mosquito was discovered as the carrier of the disease, and he extends his research even further to show how these yellow fever epidemics relate to our current society (“there is still no cure for yellow fever”).
Murphy does not patronize his audience with simplistic explanations or broadly drawn characters, nor does he confuse his audience with unexplained terminology or concepts. He covers a huge amount of knowledge in a simply written, engaging narrative that moves quickly without glossing over important elements. He understands that his readers not only want facts but also want them presented in an interesting way, and that this does not mean he has to compromise the facts for the sake of the story. He explains the gruesome details of yellow fever and of medical practices and beliefs (like bleeding and purging) in understandable terms while putting them in context. He doesn't flinch away from describing how poor residents suffered more than rich (who in many cases fled the city) and how black residents of Philadelphia stepped up to help their white neighbors and were, in many cases, treated badly for it.
The most wonderful thing about this book is that it is thoroughly researched and shows itself to be so. Each chapter includes a full-size reprint from actual contemporary papers and books, like pages from the newspaper The Federal Gazette or Mathew Carey's list of the dead (those who died from yellow fever). In many cases, the reprint shown was discussed in the previous chapter, so that readers can see the evidence themselves. Murphy also includes tons of contemporary drawings (no photographs of course) of important people and of Philadelphia , as well as a Note about the illustrations at the end of the book. He has an extensive list of sources arranged by category (“Firsthand Accounts: Nonmedical”; “Firsthand Accounts: Medical”; “All About Yellow Fever”; etc.), including many primary sources, some of which he discusses in his history (like A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793: and a Refutation of Some Censures, Thrown Upon Them in Some Late Publications by Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, two members of the Free African Society that wrote a book to respond to false charges toward blacks in Mathew Carey's history of the disease). Murphy's sources cover many angles, including doctoring in the past, Philadelphia in the past and present, George Washington, blacks in Philadelphia , mosquitoes, and other plagues.
All in all, this is a terrific and horrifying account of a deadly disease that is still on the loose and could, in the future, come back to haunt us. Here are Jim Murphy's final words: “Yet, if the history of yellow fever tells us anything, it is that this is a struggle with no real end. Yellow fever as we know it now might be conquered, but another version of the disease will eventually emerge to challenge us again. And when it does, we will have to overcome our fears and be prepared to confront it.”
© 2003 Krista Hutley. All rights reserved.