Historical topics, Post 2-3

A historical fact from the book Fever1793 the reason that the fever occurred was from Caribbean refugees that flocked to the docks of Philadelphia. The book doesn’t share the refuges flooding in but it does say in the very beginning that they were swarms of flies and mosquitoes that helped with the spread of the disease. In the book the summer was very dry and hot so it was a big reason why there were so many mosquitoes. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/yellowfever.htm. Another thing about the book is the symptoms of the fever. Many of the characters in the book experienced a high fever, yellowing of the skin, and hemorrage. I looked up the symptoms on web md and i found the disease occurs primarily in high tropic climates such as South America but since Philadelhia was having a hot and dry summer it explained why the mosquitoes hit and spread. “Yellow fever goes through two cycles; the first one occurs when the disease is spread though primates; when animals get bitten by the infected mosquitoes, this cycle is called the sylvan cycle. The other cycle is when the fever spreads from human to human; the cycle is called the urban cycle.” Yellow Fever spread so rapidly causing a wide-spread epidemic. http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/yellow-fever. Another interesting fact was that Benjamin Rush who is most famoulsy known as a signer to the Declaration of Indepence was a doctor who stayed during the epidemic to treat patients. Rush had a very bizzare method of curing fever victims. “He would bleed the patients and would administer them large amount of mercury.” In the book this was a popular method; when Mattie Cook’s; the lead character, mother got infected with yellow fever the doctor came in and drained her blood.(Harvard)  http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/yellowfever.html. Also, on this website it mentioned that one important hospital that was used for yellow fever patients was Bush Hill hospital. This was the hospital in the book that Mattie was taken to when she became ill.

Harvard University Library.2008. The President and Fellows of Harvard College. <http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/yellowfever.html.>

Samuel Breck’s account appears in Hart, Albert Bushnell, American History Told by Contemporaries, vol. 3 (1929); Powell, John Harvey, Bring Out Your Dead, The Great Plague of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793 (1949). Ibis Communications. Inc. < http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/yellowfever.htm>

Web md. 2005-2009.< http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/yellow-fever.>

Unit 2 blog, Copley Family Portrait

The copley family portrait is a family made of a grandfather, father, mother and four young daughters. You can tell that since the father and the grandfather are wearing white wigs the family is very fortunate; most likely in the higher class range. The father is also standing up, with his shoulders facing away from the portrait; by this you can tell that the father holds the power in the family. The mother is paying attention to one of the daughters, showing affection towards her rather than her other child who looks like she is desperate for attention. The desperate child looks like she has a twin who is hanging on to the grandfather. The girl looks like she is holding a rattle but is still so desperate to get a little bit of attention from her grandfather. There is a doll on the ground which is sitting idly; the young girls that are craving  attention from the adults aren’t playing with the doll. The oldest girl is in the middle of the portrait; she isn’t hanging on to any of the adults which means that the oldest girl is the most independent; she most likely knows that she will not get the attention that her younger sisters crave. She is standing with a blank expression on her face with her arms crossed; you can tell that she is lonely but mature. The clothing in this portrait is elaborate; the girl’s clothing is made from vibrant colors, blue and gold. Back in the days it costs alot of money to make clothes from certain colors; so this proves again that the family is wealthy. The background is very scenic;  with mountains and trees; the colors in the portrait ties in withthe background because they are all contemporary colors that you would see in nature. To me this family doesn’t look like the “happy American family.”