An American Plague: Chapters 1-2

by Jim Murphy
Drawing on medical research, news articles, and firsthand accounts, Jim Murphy traces the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 in this gripping historical account.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1-2, Chapters 3-4, Chapters 5-6, Chapters 7-9, Chapters 10-11

Here is a link to our lists for another work by Jim Murphy: The Great Fire
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. scourge
    something causing misery or death
    About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in among us.
  2. malignant
    dangerous to health
    About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in among us.
  3. noxious
    injurious to physical or mental health
    Dead animals were routinely tossed into this soup, where everything decayed and sent up noxious bubbles to foul the air.
  4. putrefy
    decay with an offensive smell
    The bad coffee was dumped on Ball’s Wharf, where it putrefied in the sun and sent out a powerful odor that could be smelled over a quarter mile away.
  5. formidable
    extremely impressive in strength or excellence
    Washington knew that he and his country owed the French an eternal debt. He simply wasn’t sure that the United States had the military strength to take on so many formidable foes.
  6. agonize
    suffer anguish
    Between agonized gasps and groans she muttered that her stomach felt as if it were burning up.
  7. prestigious
    having an excellent reputation; respected
    The other was Dr. John Foulke, who was a fellow of Philadelphia’s prestigious College of Physicians and a member of the Pennsylvania Hospital board.
  8. bilious
    relating to a digestive juice secreted by the liver
    Rush then noted that in recent days he had seen “an unusual number of bilious fevers, accompanied with symptoms of uncommon malignity.”
  9. humor
    fluid in the body believed to determine your emotional state
    Instead, doctors based their medical thinking on the 2,500-year-old Greek humoral theory. This concept stated that good health resulted when body fluids, called humors, were in balance. The humors were phlegm, choler, bile, and blood.
  10. mortality
    ratio of deaths in an area to the population of that area
    While mortality rates for yellow fever varied widely, it was not unusual for it to kill 50 percent of those who contracted it.
  11. plague
    any epidemic disease with a high death rate
    Rush had, in short, announced that Philadelphia was in the grip of a deadly, unstoppable plague.
  12. diagnosis
    identifying the nature or cause of some phenomenon
    Rush understood this well, but he did not waver from his diagnosis.
  13. apprehend
    anticipate with dread or anxiety
    That Thursday, Mayor Clarkson placed a notice in the newspapers saying there was “great reason to apprehend that a dangerous infectious disorder” was loose in the city.
  14. scavenger
    someone who collects things discarded by others
    He ordered laborers hired by the city, called scavengers, to clean the streets of decaying garbage and dead animals, since their vile smell might well be causing the disease.
  15. infectious
    easily spread
    These people spoke with neighbors and friends and business associates about the “dangerous, infectious disorder.” This group then spread the alarming news even further. The city’s taverns buzzed with talk of the strange, killing fever, as did the street markets and shops.
Created on Tue Oct 31 12:12:15 EDT 2017 (updated Fri Aug 01 15:15:36 EDT 2025)

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