A dreadful rash of Yellow Fever hit the city of Philadelphia in 1793. Two doctors had different views of how to treat the disease. The American doctor, Benjamin Rush advocated an aggressive treatment, while the French Haitian refugee Dr. Jean Deveze took a more cautious approach. Deveze's approach was shown to be more effective as more patients survived. Deveze's treatment for Yellow Fever was to prescribe quinine and stimulants and let the disease run its course. He knew the disease to be noncommunicable which was a reason for his cautious approach. While the treatment of the French doctor was more successful than that of the Rush camp, none of the physicians understood what caused the disease. Through the autopsies performed by Deveze, he was able to surmise that Rush's mercury "cure" was actually killing patients. Only the changing of the seasons would end the epidemic as mosquitoes were the true cause of the outbreak by transferring the illness through blood transmission.
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