Article ID: CBB083346880

‘We Yet Survive’: Physician Patient Relationships and the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1853 (2019)

unapi

During the summer of 1853 a devastating yellow fever epidemic swept through the Lower Mississippi River Valley. This article examines that epidemic as it was experienced in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and reveals the disjoint between patients’ expectations and physicians’ capabilities. In the months following the first case, Vicksburg physicians leveraged their role in managing the epidemic to participate in national conversations regarding communicability, treatments and sanitation. However, from their patients’ viewpoint, these conversations were useless. Instead, growing sexton reports and overcrowded cemeteries proved physicians’ inability to manage the crisis, thus reinforcing Americans’ wariness of professionalised medicine. In the end, physicians and residents held opposing experiences of the epidemic, and physicians’ inability to meet the practical needs of their patients further challenged their claims to professional legitimacy.

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Authors & Contributors
Kathryn Olivarius
Espinosa, Mariola
Robinson, Katie
Eulálio, Carlos Evandro Martins
Dunne, Bríd
Paul-Arthur Tortosa
Concepts
Epidemics
Yellow fever
Public health
Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment
Disease and diseases
Prevention and control of disease
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
Places
United States
Cuba
New Orleans (Louisiana, U.S.)
Brazil
Connecticut (U.S.)
Mississippi (U.S.)
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