Fever 1793 Essay

Fever 1793

There's sickness. There's vomiting. There's suffering. There's blood. There's even death. Just when you think you can get way from the terror in Philadelphia, it gets you and dissolves your entire family while you're sleeping in the night, dreaming of fairies and marshmallows, and the boy down the road. You have no idea it is here, and you have no idea it would come for youit's the yellow fever and nothing less. Yellow fever is a severe infectious disease, caused by a virus. Since that time, much has been learned about medicine, transportation and technology. What was thought might work then has been modified into what will work now.

In Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793, the setting of this story takes place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It's the year 1793 and the only thing little fourteen-year-old Mattie Cook needs to worry about is how to avoid her mother's scolding. Always up stitching quilts, spinning wool, she constantly kept herself busy. There was never a moment to spare. Mattie lives with her mother and grandfather in Philadelphia in an apartment over their family business, a coffeehouse. Mattie's father founded the coffeehouse but then died short after.

So much has changed in the field of health and medicine since the year 1793. When Mattie's mother contracts a raging fever that turned its victim's skin and eyes yellow, she sees doctor after doctor. Each one believed they knew the cure. The people of Philadelphia thought if they couldn't see nor smell the fever they were safe; but they were deathly mistaken. Health and medicine has taken a major improvement between now and then however. If you get sick now you can easily drive to a hospital with advanced technology and doctors everywhere to prescribe drugs. Back in 1793, they had no magic pills to make you better or take away the agony; the best way they had of curing the fever was to bleed your wrists and hope you get better. We know now, studies have proved, this method was not affective. It's amazing, the contrast between medicine in 1793 and health present day.

From Henry Ford to the Wright Brothers, navigation is one of the biggest fields that have shown improvement over the years. After Mattie and her Grandfather go to the country when Mrs. Cook gets sick, they travel by the only means possible in their time; wagon. Today we have faster modes of transportation such as cars, boats, trains and airplanes. The upgrades in travel that we use now also make for shorter journey time. In 1793 a wagon from Philadelphia to the country could have taken weeks, depending on how far a person wants to go. However, due to the change in travel, an airplane could take one the distance in only a fraction of the time! Our ancestors have done a lot in order to make travel as we know it today.

In the 1400s John Guttenberg created the first printing press, allowing hand written documents to be copied and distributed faster than any scribe could write, therefore enabling word to get around faster. The Guttenberg printing press only changed for the better, making it more efficient and accomplished. In the summer of 1793 when the fever started to spread, the printing press quickly spread word and informed the public of the goings on around the country. Being able to print up to hundreds of text within a week was a huge advancement then. Thanks to Ira Washington Rubel, we can print up to thousands of documents within the hour. Rubels offset printing is the most common, productive use of printing in the current day.

Yellow Fever is a horrible, agonizing disease that infected and killed a lot of people in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Society has traveled a very long way since then, however. Through scientific studies, humankind has learned and grown in many ways such as medicine, travel and technology. Laurie Halse Andersons epic adventure of Fever 1793 tells the tale of a young girl and her family through the eyes of the summer in 1793.