1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic with slaves, arrived from Cap Français, Saint-Domingue. The 2,000 immigrants were fleeing the slave revolution in the north of the island. They crowded the port of Philadelphia, where the first yellow fever epidemic in 30 years began in the city in August. It is likely that the refugees and ships carried the yellow fever virus and mosquitoes. It is transmitted during mosquito bites. The mosquitoes easily breed in small amounts of standing water. The medical community and others in 1793 did not understand the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of yellow fever and other diseases. Physicians and other survivors
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