<P> The mayor and a committee of two dozen organized a fever hospital at Bush Hill and other crisis measures . The assistance of the Free African Society was requested by the city and readily agreed to by the members, based on the mistaken assumption that native Africans would have the same partial immunity to the new disease as many had to malaria, the most common source of fever epidemics during the summer months . Black nurses aided the sick and the group's leaders hired additional men to take away corpses, which most people would not touch . Blacks in the city died at the same rate as whites, about 240 altogether . </P> <P> Some neighboring towns refused to let refugees in from Philadelphia, for fear they were carrying the fever . Major port cities such as Baltimore and New York had quarantines against refugees and goods from Philadelphia although New York sent financial aid to the city . The once thriving city soon became distraught under the raging epidemic, leaving many to fight for their own lives . </P> <P> In the spring of 1793, French colonial refugees, some with slaves, arrived from Cap Français, Saint - Domingue . The 2,000 immigrants were fleeing the slave revolution in the north of the island . They crowded the port of Philadelphia, where the first yellow fever epidemic in 30 years began in the city in August . It is likely that the refugees and ships carried the yellow fever virus and mosquitoes . It is transmitted during mosquito bites . The mosquitoes easily breed in small amounts of standing water . The medical community and others in 1793 did not understand the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of yellow fever and other diseases . Physicians and other survivors of the epidemic wrote extensively about it trying to learn from the crisis . </P> <P> In the ports and coastal areas of the United States, even in the northeast, the months of August and September were considered the "sickly season," when fevers were prevalent . In the South, planters and other people wealthy enough usually left the Low Country during this season . Natives thought that newcomers especially had to undergo a "seasoning" and were more likely to die of what were thought to be seasonal fevers in their early years in the region . Philadelphia then was the temporary capital of the United States, and the government was due to return in the fall . President George Washington left the city . </P>

When did the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 start