Yellow Fever Quotes
Gorrie’s motivation for conditioning the air was to eliminate the Yellow Fever and other disease which seemed to strike every summer. He found that although he could get a patent and demonstrate the ice-making machine the society at the time thought his invention bordered on blasphemy (see {44386}) and like many new technologies could simply not comprehend its utility. It was a commercial failure. See {601961}
The disease was Malaria. It was the major health killer in the country then. It was spread by mosquitoes although no one knew it at the time. The mosquitoes thrived in the tide waters and the cesspools of cities. However it also struck in rural areas but since people died off a few at a time, no one noticed. Even into the 21st century Malaria was a serious killer in Africa and Asia.
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
Many people in Europe looked down on America and perceived it as a primitive, uncivilized place that was a huge swamp and that Yellow Fever was rampant. The swamp and Yellow Fever accusations were not exactly untrue. However, there was much more to the Colonies than the critics claimed as history would prove. Note that universal suffrage—allowing all men to vote regardless of wealth—was considered as bad as Yellow Fever and swamps by the aristocratic Europeans of the time. Many Americans had something of an inferiority complex as a result of European attitudes about the United States, but not Clinton.
