Over 5,000 people died of yellow fever in Philadelphia during an epidemic in 1793. Why did so many people in temperate Pennsylvania die of a tropical mosquito-borne disease?

by JustinJSrisuk

Also, how was yellow fever introduced into the area; or was it always endemic to the region?

How did the epidemic impact the population, infrastructure, culture and civic life of Philadelphia in the months and years after it had subsided?

Finally, the epidemic occurred at the very dawn of the development of science-based model of medicine; did the epidemic result in any significant medical discoveries amongst the doctors and scientists of the day?

erejp

Pennsylvania can be stiflingly hot in the summer. To place a point of comparison, malaria was a significant problem when building the Versailles castle on a relatively marshy plateau (second half of the XVIIth century and early XVIIIth mostly), see for example Une histoire des microbes, P. Berche, p.101.