Chapter One: No One Noticed
1. What was the date at the beginning of Chapter 1?
2. In which direction were the swamps near Philadelphia that had lost water
due to the intense heat?
3. What was the name of one of the rivers that was drying up near Philadelphia?
4. What were the sewers called in Philadelphia?
5. Where did the sloop Amelia come from?
6. What cargo did the sloop Amelia bring to Philadelphia?
7. What was the largest city in North America in 1793?
8. How many people lived in Philadelphia in 1793?
9. How many shops were in Philadelphia in 1793?
10. Who lent his house to George and Martha Washington?
11. How did Louis XVI die?
12. How many French refugees fled a fierce slave rebellion?
13. What illness was seen in January of 1793?
14. What type of church did Rev. J. Henry C. Helmuth pastor?
15. What was the nationality of the sailor who had a fever and seizures before
he died on August 3?
16. In what boarding house did a sailor die of a fever?
17. How many people died in two houses on the same street during one week?
18. After a sailor died in a boarding house, who was the next person to die?
Chapter Two: All Was Not Right
1. How old was Catherine LeMaigre when she became ill?
2. How often would Catherine LeMaigre vomit?
3. To Catherine LeMaigre, what part of her body did she feel as though it was
burning up?
4. What was Catherine LeMaigre's husband's name?
5. A few days before being called to care for Catherine LeMaigre, which doctor
had lost his daughter to the same fever?
6. What did doctors give Catherine LeMaigre to cool her fever?
7. How old was Benjamin Rush in 1793?
8. What year was a French watercolor done to show a yellow fever victim in the
early stages of the illness?
9. What did physicians call the tiny reddish sores that erupted on individuals
who had the plague?
10. According to Dr. Hodge, where did the first deaths from the fever happen?
11. How long had medical professionals believed that disease was caused by
body humors being out of balance?
12. How many humors did physicians believe there were in the human body?
13. When had Dr. Rush seen a similar sickness before?
14. How many people who contracted yellow fever usually died from it?
15. How many physicians were in Philadelphia in 1793?
16. What day of the week did Catherine LeMaigre die?
17. Where was Dr. Rush's wife that summer of 1793?
18. When did a savage storm hit the city bringing winds and torrents of rain?
Chapter Three: Church Bells Tolling
1. What was the name of the newspaper that was printed at the beginning of
Chapter 3?
2. How many watchmen were supposed to watch the streets of Philadelphia at
night?
3. How many people do historians estimate fled from Philadelphia during the
fever?
4. When did Matthew Clarkson become mayor of Philadelphia?
5. How old was Matthew Clarkson when the plague struck Philadelphia?
6. How many children did Clarkson have?
7. What was the name of Clarkson's son who died during the plague?
8. What eye condition did Matthew Clarkson have?
9. When did Clarkson ask the physicians from the College of Physicians to come
to a meeting about the plague?
10. When was the last time that there was a yellow fever epidemic?
11. How many physicians from the College of Physicians showed up when
Matthew Clarkson called a meeting?
12. What was the name of the doctor who had studied yellow fever, but never
seen it?
13. What day of the week were the recommendations published from the
College of Physicians?
14. What did A.B., a contributor to "Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser," find in
rainwater barrels?
15. What did many people sprinkle around their rooms after whitewashing
them?
16. How many of his children did Charles Willson Peale shut inside his
museum-residence along with himself and his wife?
17. What was Charles Willson Peale's wife's name?
18. How many times a day did Charles Willson Peale fire a musket inside his
house?
19. In her journal, what did Elizabeth Drinker say about the fever on August
28?
20. What were the main reasons why people stayed in the city during the
plague?
21. Describe Matthew Clarkson's upbringing and career.
22. What type of power did the mayor of Philadelphia have?
23. What did A.B. recommend be done to curb the fever in Dunlap's American
Daily Advertiser?
24. What did Dr. Benjamin Duffield recommend be done to deal with the fever?
Chapter Four: Confusion, Distress, and Utter Desolation
1. Where was the militia company stationed that shot off a cannon in Chapter
4?
2. On August 27, how many senators from the Pennsylvania legislature met at
the state house?
3. How many representatives met at the state house on August 27?
4. In what part of the state house building were the rooms of Joseph Fry, the
doorkeeper who died from the fever?
5. Who was the speaker of the Senate in 1793?
6. Who was the governor of Pennsylvania in 1793?
7. Where was the city almshouse located?
8. How many Overseers were in charge of managing the city almshouse?
9. How many Guardians were in charge of caring for the poor who did not live
in the city almshouse?
10. Where did John Bill Ricketts take his circus for the summer?
11. Where was the mansion located that was commandeered for a place to care
for seriously ill patients?
12. Who was the owner of Bush Hill?
13. How many rooms were there in Bush Hill?
14. What was the name of the second-year medical student who volunteered to
help at Bush Hill?
15. How many died on September 8?
16. Where did federal department heads move their offices?
17. When did George and Martha Washington leave Philadelphia?
18. How long did George Washington plan to be gone from Philadelphia when
he left the city?
19. Who decided that a cannon should be fired in the streets of Philadelphia at
the end of August?
20. Why did the members of the Pennsylvania legislature become fearful two
days after they began meeting at the statehouse?
21. What business was conducted by the members of the Pennsylvania
legislature before they adjourned?
22. What did the governor do about the plague?
23. Why was Mayor Clarkson concerned about the rising number of penniless
people in Philadelphia?
24. Why was a constitutional crisis set in motion when Washington left
Philadelphia?
Chapter Five: It Was Our Duty
1. What was the date at the beginning of Chapter 5?
2. When was the Free African Society founded?
3. Who wrote a letter asking the Free African Society to nurse the sick and
attend to the dead?
4. About how many free blacks lived in Philadelphia?
5. About how many blacks in Philadelphia were slaves?
6. In 1793, what percent of Philadelphia's black worked as live-in domestic
workers?
7. When was a portrait of Absalom Jones painted by Raphaelle?
8. What church in Philadelphia had been built with the help of blacks?
9. How much money did the black leaders attempt to raise in order to build a
new church?
10. How much money was donated to refugees from Santo Domingo?
11. Where did Jones and Allen discover a house where the mother was dead, the
father was dying, and the children were huddled together, frightened and
hungry?
12. How many families did Jones and Allen visit in one day?
13. How many groups in Philadelphia stepped forward and offered to help with
the sick and deceased?
14. How much did some nurses begin receiving for tending the sick?
15. What was the average yearly income in Philadelphia in 1793?
16. How many blacks were Jones and Allen in direct contact with who might
have helped tend the sick?
17. What doctor wrote about the disgusting aspects of the vomit that spewed
from fever victims?
18. How old was Isaac Heston when the plague struck Philadelphia?
19. Why was the Free African Society founded?
20. Why did Benjamin Rush ask the Free African society to help nurse the sick
and attend to the dead?
21. Why did blacks stop worshiping at St. George Methodist Church?
22. What did the volunteers from the Free African Society often find when they
entered the homes of fever victims?
23. What types of services did the Free African Society perform for the sick?
34. Why were the black nurses criticized?
Chapter Six: The Prince of Bleeders
1. When did Dr. Rush realize that he had yellow fever?
2. At the beginning of Chapter 6, about how many persons were ill with the
fever?
3. By the time Dr. Rush contracted yellow fever, how many doctors had died?
4. For how many years had doctors been using bloodletting or phlebotomy?
5. In the 1700s, what was often prescribed to break a slight fever?
6. What Revolutionary War hero wrote begging Dr. Rush for his help during the
1797 yellow fever epidemic?
7. In Chapter 6 in a letter to his wife, how many patients did Dr. Rush say that
he was learning had died every morning?
8. Whose letter did Dr. Rush find in his old medical books about the yellow
plagues that had occurred in Virginia about fifty years earlier?
9. How many times a day would Dr. Rush administer the Ten-and-Ten or Tenand-Fifteen Treatment?
10. How many pounds of blood did Dr. Rush and other doctors at that time
believe that the human body held?
11. By September 5, how many of Dr. Rush's patients did he claim improved
with the Ten-and-Ten treatment?
12. After Dr. Rush's assistants bled him and administered the purge, how many
days did it take for him to get back on his feet?
13. When did Dr. Rush hire a horse-drawn carriage and begin visiting patients
after his bout with yellow fever?
14. After Dr. Rush seemed to be cured of yellow fever, how many patients
sought him in a day?
15. How many patients did Dr. Rush's five assistants each see in one day after
Dr. Rush's recovery?
16. How many bleedings did the Free African Society perform?
17. How old was the servant boy that Dr. Rush trained to open a vein and see
the sick?
18. What was the name of Dr. Rush's sister who died during the plague?
19. Why did Dr. Rush continue seeing patients when he had yellow fever
himself?
20. What was vis medicatrix naturae?
21. What was bloodletting?
22. What type of treatment did Dr. Rush prescribe at the beginning of the
epidemic?
23. What was the Ten-and-Ten treatment?
24. What type of treatment did Dr. William Currie recommend?
Chapter Seven: By Twelve Only
1. What newspaper was printed occasionally by September?
2. How often had the College of Physicians promised to meet during the
plague?
3. Besides the mayor, how many members were on the illegal special committee
formed to run Philadelphia?
4. Which member of the special committee was in charge of providing food for
the city?
5. How old was Israel Israel at the time of the plague?
6. How many cords of wood did a subcommittee obtain before winter set in?
7. By the first of September, how many people were jammed into Bush Hill?
8. How old was Stephen Girard in 1793?
9. Where was Stephen Girard born?
10. When did Stephen Girard contract a mild case of yellow fever?
11. For how many days did Peter Helm and Stephen Girard attend to Bush HIll?
12. When did Dr. Jean Deveze volunteer to work at Bush Hill?
13. How old was Dr. Deveze in 1793?
14. By September 17, how many burials were taking place daily?
15. How much did the citizens of Manhattan send to aid Philadelphians?
16. Where was a Philadelphia woman and her black servant tarred and
feathered?
17. What state refused to allow a ship from Philadelphia to land and take on
water?
18. How many bundles of shirts and dresses for orphans were sent by the
Widow Grubb?
19. Why did it seem that the entire city had collapsed at the beginning of
Chapter 7?
20. Why were the special committee members taking a risk when they borrowed
money to run the city?
21. Why were conditions so desperate at Bush Hill?
22. Who was Peter Helm?
23. Who was Stephen Girard?
24. How did Dr. Jean Deveze treat fever patients?
Chapter Eight: this Unmerciful Enemy
1. Who wrote that Death was riding triumphant on a pale horse at the beginning
of Chapter 8?
2. How many died from the plague on October 7?
3. How many died from yellow fever on Saturday, October 12?
4. From Rev.Helmuth's congregation, how many died at the beginning of
October?
5. What type of church did Reverend Mr. Helmuth pastor?
6. Of what type of church was Reverend John Schmidt a pastor?
7. What decorated houses where people were sick from the yellow fever?
8. How many whale oil streetlamps were in Philadelphia in 1793?
9. In what alley did Helmuth find 40 dead?
10. On October 17, which committee member wrote in the official minutes that
the fever was winning?
11. How many times did it rain in September, 1793?
12. What was the name of a man who lost his entire family, including his wife,
to the plague; and then married again?
13. When did the Black Plague strike in England?
14. When Rush contracted yellow fever again, how many days did he spend
confined to bed unable to lift his head?
15. What paper did Andrew Brown publish?
16. What was the name of a memorable poem written by Philip Freneau?
17. Where did Major Christian Piercy become ill as he fled Philadelphia?
18. At whose farm was Major Christian Piercy put out of a stagecoach?
19. At the beginning of Chapter 8, what were conditions like at Bush Hill?
20. What signs were there that the fever seemed to be gaining in strength and
deadliness in Chapter 8?
21. What did Rev. Helmuth write about visits he made at night to visit the sick?
22. What other problems did Philadelphia have other than the plague?
23. How did landlords respond during the plague?
24. What type of news did Philip Freneau print during the plague?
Chapter Nine: A Delicate Situation
1. Who had President Washington put in charge when he left Philadelphia?
2. How many weeks did Henry Knox spend in quarantine?
3. How many high-ranking officials of the federal government were within a
day's ride of Philadelphia?
4. Who was the governor of Maryland in 1793?
5. What ship was seized by one of Genet's hired privateers?
6. During the plague, how many days might it take for a letter to be sent to or
from Philadelphia?
7. When did President Washington leave Mount Vernon and head north?
8. Where did Thomas Jefferson and George Washington meet as they traveled
toward Philadelphia?
9. How much did Thomas Jefferson estimate that it cost him to get to
Germantown?
10. On what day did the death toll fall below thirty?
11. What was the occupation of a man named Mr. Brooks who reopened his
shop on October 31 and died of yellow fever on November 3?
12. When did George Washington make a personal inspection of Philadelphia?
13. What did Secretary of War Henry Knox do when President Washington left
him in charge of the government in Philadelphia?
14. What problem did Thomas Sim Lee, governor of Maryland, ask Washington
to help him solve?
15. What were sleeping accommodations like in Germantown?
16. What did George Washington do on November 10?
Chapter Ten: Improvements and the Public Gratitude
1. What was Dolley Payne Todd's husband's name?
2. Where did Dolley Payne Todd go during the fever outbreak?
3. When was someone hired to design and construct Philadelphia's first
waterworks?
4. Who was hired to design and construct Philadelphia's first waterworks?
5. How long was Dr. Currie's book about Philadelphia's plague?
6. When did the fever reappear in Philadelphia?
7. What was the name of William Cobbett's paper?
8. Where did Dr. Rush apply to become a member of the medical faculty?
9. How much did a jury award Dr. Rush including court costs when he sued
Cobbett for libel?
10. How much more did the committee spend than it had received in
donations?
11. When Israel Israel finally won an election of Pennsylvania state legislature,
by how many votes did he win?
12. How much did some whites charge to put a corpse in a coffin and haul it to
a waiting wagon?
13. Who Was Dolley Payne Todd?
14. Where did water come from in 1793?
15. What did Dr. Rush do when the College of Physicians declared that the
plague had not been caused by yellow fever?
16. When Jones and Allen took Carey to task for things he wrote in his book
about blacks, what did Carey add to his book?
Chapter Eleven: A Modern-Day Time Bomb
1. When was the quote written at the beginning of Chapter 11?
2. In the 1700s, how many times did yellow fever epidemics strike Manhattan
and the surrounding towns?
3. When was the Quarantine Hospital set on fire?
4. How many died of yellow fever in New Orleans in 1853?
5. When General Charles LeClerc went to Haiti to crush a slave revolt, how many
Haitians were killed?
6. When did France sell its North American territory to the United States in the
Louisiana Purchase.
7. When was it first considered that mosquitoes might cause yellow fever?
8. Where was Dr. Carlos Finlay from?
9. During the Spanish-American war, how many American soldiers died of
yellow fever.
10. Who headed the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission?
11. How old was Jesse Lazear when he died from yellow fever?
12. When was the actual source of the yellow fever virus identified to be treedwelling monkey in African and American rain forests?
13. In 1858 when yellow fever struck Manhattan, how was it handled?
14. Who was blamed for the yellow fever?
15. What was the medical advice given by a Memphis newspaper in 1878?
16. How was yellow fever nearly eradicated in Havana?