welcome to between the cover summer
series with our Spotlight on South
Florida I'm Anne bocock and I'm here
with author and historian Robert Watson
his new book is America's first plague
the deadly epidemic that crippled a
nation we often say that covid was
unprecedented but it wasn't the first
plague to ravage this country thank you
for coming and and take us back to
Philadelphia and yellow fever yeah well
and it's always a pleasure to be here
and thank you for what you do I enjoy
the show yeah so uh during covid I was
stuck inside like the rest of the world
uh looking for something to do and I
thought why don't I write a book about
the first pandemic I assumed it would be
the Spanish Flu influenza early 1900s
and I found that in 1793 there was a
horrible pandemic in fact my title of
the book America first plague comes from
newspapers politicians to public they
called it the plague and it struck
Philadelphia which was the interim
Capital City while what is Washington DC
today while that was being built I
estimate that it killed at least 10
percent of the population of the capital
city and then a tour up and down the
Eastern Seaboard the death toll may have
been as high as 20 percent uh so it was
a devastating disease as you correctly
noted yellow fever what made it even
worse yellow fever comes from a mosquito
Adidas aegypti it means the unwelcome
Egyptian in Latin but nobody then knew
what caused it there was no vaccination
no known cure so the Panic the chaos was
was off the charts the way you wrote
this it was a nightmare during during
this time here it is Philadelphia you
said was the interim uh capital for for
the country was also the center of
medicine at the the time and here we
have people they don't understand
viruses they don't understand bacteria
but yet they managed to have a lot of
theories yeah they sure did so
Philadelphia was the most important city
of course it's where the Declaration was
written Constitutional Convention it had
been an interim Capital it was uh the
first circulating Public Library the
home of Benjamin Franklin so
Philadelphia was the main city without
question and the centerpiece of medicine
in the country
sadly tragically I called the chapter on
this the Physicians war and I got that
directly from newspapers Physicians were
arguing it was a flat out War over what
caused it and how they should treat it
and they got it dead wrong Benjamin Rush
who was a signer of the Declaration he
was America's most favorite and most
esteemed physician our Hippocrates you
might say Benjamin Rush got it dead
wrong they believed in two things one
was phlegms body fluids and phlegms were
off balance therefore he believed we
need to purge people his patients had
constant diarrhea and vomiting he and he
had them use mercury poisonous roots and
when that didn't work he gave them even
more in fact other Physicians and even
Alexander Hamilton who opposed him said
that he's a Scourge worse than the
disease and he probably killed as many
people as the disease the other uh
theory was miasma or mass Mata which is
foul air rod coffee a dead animal swamps
they thought that foul air was a part
and they got both wrong it turned out it
was a mosquito so the the cause and the
Cure were both completely wrong
like you do in every book of yours that
I've read you manage to find some
Extraordinary People some heroes in this
one doctors that put their life on the
line they didn't know what they were
dealing with they were experimenting
where did you find them yeah but
fortunately uh you know during covet I
had a lot of time for research and I
there was some people at the Library of
Congress which was closed but came in
and helped me by sending me documents
and digging up things for me but um
there were a number of doctors who
stayed in Philadelphia and treated their
patients even though they thought it was
contagious it wasn't but they thought it
was uh The Wharf the dock area in
Philadelphia was called hell town and
here's one truism in history no matter
where you are the docs were hellish this
is Pirates criminals Sailors it was just
the worst place and these doctors
bravely went down to this hell town at
the Docks even if they thought it was
contagious several doctors contracted it
several doctors died there was a French
doctor named Jean de Vise who's from
what was present day Haiti back then
Sant domingue and he had seen it before
or variations of it and he was willing
to treat the people dying he went into
the worse conditions expose themselves
to it so there were some absolute heroes
in the medical field even though other
doctors got it dead wrong
there are so many comparisons to covet
not only did you write the book during
the pandemic but here we have in this
time there's Panic there's fear there's
mistrust of the government yeah I mean
it is affecting marginalized communities
does that like Amaze you when you were
living this and then writing this in
fact one thing I did and I talked to my
editor about it was I didn't think
people would believe me if I wrote it so
I used quotes from politicians
newspapers Physicians the mayor of
Philadelphia Matthew Clarkson was very
enlightened at George Washington as
president was there so they asked people
to wear masks and half the people did
the other half said it's their freedom
they refused to wear a mask they asked
people to socially distance to walk on
opposite sides of the street to stay
indoors and they noticed that people
were getting sick who were out at Sunset
now that's when mosquitoes are active
they didn't know it was from a mosquito
so they asked people to refrain from
that and people purposely gathered in
groups saying it's our right to do this
preachers called their flocks out at
Sunset and said we're going to pray it
away so um the same fights over covid we
saw pour out one of the political
parties was trying to enforce all this
the other one was blaming them and
saying it's our right to not do it uh
and unfortunately another truism you
find throughout history every culture
every country every period in time they
blamed immigrants it came from
immigrants then they blame the black
community then they blame the Jewish
Community some preachers called a
theater in town the synagogue of Satan
saying it's the evil the theater and
evil of Jews in the city so the same
horrible bigotry that has plagued
Humanity unfortunately plagued us in our
interim capital city and the fear and
panic as you correctly noted it was such
that you know diseases Wars things of
this always bring out the best in
humanity but they always bring out the
worst and this brought out both
thank you
quick lightning round either a sentence
or or a word for these few questions the
best or the worst advice you got before
you started writing find your own style
don't try to be Stephen J Gould Kurt
Vonnegut David McCullough Doris Kearns
Goodwin just write with your own style
it'll flow more naturally and then
somebody else said write it like it's a
movie
to make it so it visually the colors The
Sounds the what people were doing that
morning what that way it hops off the
pages what was the trickiest part of
writing this book some of the old
English I found some Diaries from some
Quakers a woman named Elizabeth Drinker
and every other word is ye thy you know
so it's it's a little cumbersome to read
especially handwritten if there was a
one-word teaser for what this book is
about what is that word overcoming
yeah we overcame it this nation endured
uh when it this almost ended the nation
what we endured if we could see your
bookshelf at home what would that say
about you I love history
full of history books yeah and lastly
one thing that you would tell your
younger self learn other languages I
have barely some degree of understanding
of a few languages I would have tried to
become fluent in several languages
this book is fascinating and we only
just touched the surface it is America's
first plague the deadly epidemic that
crippled a Young Nation as always Dr
Robert Watson you have taught me
something and I love the book Thank you
thank you Ann appreciate it I'm Anne
bocock please join me on the next
between the covers
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