By Richard Boster
The census states that the
dreaded yellow fever is taking the lives of 20 Philadelphians per day on
average. The people of Philadelphia as well as Pennsylvania have suffered the
greatest from this terrible plague. Philadelphia has been barely surviving with
the daily death tolls that keep going higher and higher. Adults and children
alike have been getting ill and dying.
The symptoms for yellow
fever are a high fever, uncontrollable bilious
vomiting of blood and or food, and the obvious symptom in which the sick
patient’s skin and eyes turn yellow.
“This dreaded yellow fever
has taken the lives of both my mother and my husband”, said Matilda Crocker.
Even the usual treatment for curing yellow fever, which is cutting the patient
and emptying them of their diseased blood, has had little effect on the vast
number of infected people.
Local clergy believe that
the yellow fever is caused by the folly of
people’s sins. Doctors can do little for patients except try to offer some
comfort. The respected physician Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence, has advised those who can to flee the city. Those
who have the means have taken his advice and retreated to country estates. Even
our elected officials have fled the city.
The hospitals are overflowing with fever
patients and local churches have started housing the sick. Some who have fallen
ill die in the streets alone without anyone knowing.
There seems to be no stopping
the fever. “Almost everyone in Philadelphia seems to have lost hope”, said local
nurse Evangeline Pickett. Philadelphia is becoming poor from lack of trade and merchants
coming to our fever stricken city. Philadelphians wonder: Is this the end of our
once prosperous city?