1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic the origin of the fever nor that it was transmitted by mosquitoes (which was not verified until the late nineteenth century). The mayor and a committee of two dozen organized a fever hospital at Bush Hill and other crisis measures. The assistance of the Free African Society was requested by the city and readily agreed to by the members, based on the mistaken assumption that native Africans would have the same partial immunity to the new disease as many had to malaria, the most common source of fever epidemics during the summer months. Black nurses aided the sick and the
Yellow fever there were seriously affected by the "yellow jack". Wanting to regain control of the lucrative sugar trade in Saint-Domingue (Hispaniola), and with an eye on regaining France's New World empire, Napoleon sent an army under the command of his brother-in-law General Charles Leclerc to Saint-Domingue to seize control after a slave revolt. The historian J. R. McNeill asserts that yellow fever accounted for about 35,000 to 45,000 casualties of these forces during the fighting. Only one-third of the French troops survived for withdrawal and return to France. Napoleon gave up on the island and his plans for North America, selling