Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/pamphlets

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

A Short Account of the Malignant Fever

A Short Account of the Malignant Fever (1793) was a pamphlet published by Mathew Carey (January 28, 1760 – September 16, 1839) about the outbreak of the Yellow Fever epidemic Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 in Philadelphia in the United States. The first pamphlet of 12 pages was later expanded in three subsequent versions. Local black leaders Absalom Jones and Richard Allen thought that Carey's account did not give sufficient credit to black residents who volunteered as nurses during the outbreak, and published a counter-narrative, “A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia (1794). This was all due to Carey's accusations against African Americans in his publication which contained theft and extorting wages from people. Carey agreed with their assessment and revised his pamphlet a fourth time to present that view.

Background

Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in the beginning of September, advising him of the disaster the epidemic would cause throughout the city. At the time, the population of Philadelphia was about 45,000. (Other estimates are 50,000.) Of the residents, an estimated 17,000 were said to have been ill, and nearly 5,000 died.

According to numerous scholars, Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote to Richard Allen, a black preacher and leader of the Free African Society, appealing to him and his people for help. This was due to the lack of white volunteers at the time. Rush also believed that blacks might have immunity to the disease, as he had read accounts by another doctor of a yellow fever in epidemic in Charleston, in which they were reported as surviving at higher rates than whites. He appealed to Allen for aid in the epidemic.

References

References

  1. [http://www.williamreesecompany.com/shop/reeseco/WRCAM35167.html Mathew Carey, ''A Short Account of the Malignant Fever which Prevailed in Philadelphia, 1793''], William Reese Company, commercial site, photo of pamphlet cover
  2. [http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/yellowfever.html "Yellow fever"], Harvard University
  3. (2000). "Race, Commerce, and the Literature of Yellow Fever in Early National Philadelphia". Early American Literature.
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

pamphlets 1793-books yellow-fever anti-black-racism-in-pennsylvania
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about A Short Account of the Malignant Fever — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report