The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, in cooperation with History Making Productions, is pleased to present a screening of the newest episode of the documentary series, Philadelphia: The Great Experiment, entitled Fever: 1793 which chronicles the devastating and nearly catastrophic yellow fever epidemic which engulfed the city in the summer and fall of 1793 and returned in 1797, 1798 and 1799.  The fever terminated Philadelphia's hopes to retain its role as the nation's capital, badly split the medical community over causes and cures, exposed major rifts in society over race and class and threatened to unravel the precarious threads that bound a young nation together.  Only through heroic action and assumption of great personal risk, was Philadelphia even able to survive as a viable community.  Matthew Clarkson, a relatively powerless mayor, organized volunteers including Richard Allen and Stephen Girard to take actions to care for the suffering, bury the dead and restore a measure of calm.  Physicians like Benjamin Rush and William Currie persevered in the face of enormous patient caseloads, nearly total gloom and vicious personal attacks from with the medical community to treat victims and administer their therapies. Former slave Sarah Bass was on the front lines helping mostly white families in anticipation that she and many other black nurses would earn the respect and appreciation of their white neighbors, an aspiration not realized in the aftermath of the epidemic.  In the end it was the public and civic response to the fever that most characterized the city, through the development of the first municipal water system, reclaiming the areas first planned by William Penn as public squares, implementing a quarantine hospital for immigrants and surging ahead with medical research and innovation.

In addition to presenting the episode and one or two accompanying webisodes, Sam Katz, Executive Producer and Director of the film, will speak about the project and engage in a Q&A session.  Sam will be joined by Robert Hicks, PhD, Measey Chair for the History of Medicine, Director of the Mütter Museum & Historical Medical Library, and Helen C. Koenig, MD, MPH, an expert in infectious diseases, each of whom will bring a unique perspective to understanding the threat of major epidemics to urban populations. 

Sponsored by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, its Section on Medicine & the Arts, and History Making Productions.