TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 95
more and more precarious, a panic broke out and up to 20,000 people,
mostofthemfromtheupperechelonsofsociety,fledtothesurrounding
countryside (Pernick 559). In this way, the medical crisis soon
developed into a full-fledged civic crisis, and like the medical crisis,
this, too, was of unprecedented proportions and led to a full-scale
collapseofthesocialorder.OnlywhentheNovemberfrostsarrived,did
theepidemicgraduallyabate.Bythattime,about7,000people(10to15
percent of the city's population) had died.^44 Such a human disaster
caused yellow fever to become a very public disease which generated a
range of (usually affect-laden) responses in which the differences
between the medical body and the body politic became progressively
blurred.
Even though the 1793 epidemic holds a special place in U.S.-
American collective memory, it was but one in a long chain of similar
outbreakswhichhadvisitedPhiladelphiasincethedaysofWilliamPenn
(1690, 1741, 1747, 1762) and would continue to do so—the next
epidemics would come in 1794 and 1797, respectively.^45 What makes
the 1793 outbreak unique is therefore lessthatit occurred butwhenit
occurred: in the immediate aftermath of the ratification of the
Constitution and during intense public debates about the national
identity of the country and the proper republican ideals of its citizens
(Clark 61-65). This debate had earlier that year reached a new level of
intensityintheacrimoniousexchangesinthecity'snewspapersbetween
Federalists and Republicans, between the partisans of Alexander
Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Together with a number of self-
appointed scribes (among them the writer Philip Freneau), the pro-
JeffersonNational Gazetteand theGazette of the United States,which
was leaning toward the Hamiltonian position, had clashed regularly
aboutissuesconcerningthepolitical,socialandeconomicorientationof
thenewRepublic,the"peculiarinstitution"ofslaveryandtheroleofthe
United States in the circum-Caribbean and the larger trans-Atlantic
(^44) Numbersvary:A.CrosbyandPernickestimatethat10to15percentofatotal
populationof45,000died(A.Crosby210;Pernick559)whileKoppermangives
afigureof5,000casualties(539).
(^45) I acknowledge the indebtedness of my narrative to the work of Powell and
Pernick.