History of yellow fever 1,235 fatalities were recorded of an estimated 12,000 cases. Smaller outbreaks occurred in Saint-Nazaire in France, Swansea in Wales, and in other European port cities following the arrival of vessels carrying the mosquito vector. The first mention of the disease by the name "yellow fever" occurred in 1744. Many famous people, mostly during the 18th through the 20th centuries, contracted and then recovered from, or died of, yellow fever. The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 struck during the summer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the highest fatalities in the United States were recorded. The disease probably was brought by refugees and
1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic atmosphere that might last 50 years and make deadly epidemics almost certain. Yellow fever epidemics became seen as a national crisis. When in 1855 a French doctor published an 813-page history of yellow fever in Philadelphia, covering outbreaks from 1699 to 1854, he devoted only a few pages to the 1793 epidemic. General 20th-century US histories, such as the 10-volume "Great Epochs in American History," published in 1912, used short excerpts from Carey's account. The first history of the epidemic to draw on more primary sources was J. H. Powell's "Bring Out Your Dead" (1949), but he did not use