jan 1, 1793 - Yellow Fever

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Almost 5,000 people died over the course of two years, about a tenth of the city's population. Thousands fled for the countryside, and at the height of the epidemic, when nearly 100 people were dying every day, the city government collapsed. Philadelphia was the capital of the country, but the federal government evacuated rather than face the scourge. The best known cure at the time was to "bleed" patients of infected blood and give them wine — and a popular theory on stopping the disease was to quarantine sailors at the Lazaretto, a hospital outside the city. But the disease is spread through mosquitoes, so quarantine was not as effective as the cold snap that eventually killed the infected insects. The Lazaretto, named after Lazarus, the Biblical leper treated and brought back to life by Jesus, remains the oldest surviving quarantine hospital in the United States. (from https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2014/10/30/360120406/awful-moments-in-quarantine-history-remember-typhoid-mary)

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