Short Account of Malignant Fever in Philadelphia – Mathew Carey Bio (1793), 
Philadelphia County, PA

Contributed to the PAGenWeb Archives by Marjorie B. Winter [marjw@cox.net]

Copyright.  All Rights Reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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               A short account of the malignant Fever, 
                 Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia:
     With a statement of the Proceedings that took place on the subject, 
              in different parts of the United States.
                         To which are added, 
             Accounts of the Plague in London and Marseilles; 
                       and a list of the dead, 
             from August 1, to the middle of December, 1793.

                          By Mathew Carey
                    Fourth Edition, Improved.

         Philadelphia:  Printed By the Author   January 16, 1794

MATHEW CAREY was a Dublin firebrand, published near-seditious writings -- 
pamphlets and newspapers  -- and was forced to leave Ireland on two occasions.  
On the first, he fled to Paris, where he met Benjamin Franklin and worked with 
him at his press in Passy.  It was there, too, that he was introduced to the 
Marquis de Lafayette.  Upon his return to Ireland, Carey was even more unwelcome 
because of the increasingly inflammatory nature of his writings.  This time he 
emigrated to Philadelphia, arriving here in November, 1784, with only a few 
guineas in his pocket.  Lafayette, who was then in America, heard of his plight 
and sent him a check for four hundred dollars.  With this, CAREY established a 
daily journal and soon after began publishing books and pamphlets.  CAREY repaid 
his debt to Lafayette 40 years later when the aged marquis, then in straitened 
circumstances, made a triumphal return to the land he helped liberate.

Medical books made their appearance on CAREY's list from the earliest days, the 
first (1792) being a pamphlet on rabies dedicated to Dr. Benjamin Rush and a 
treatise on the care of infants.  CAREY stayed in Philadelphia during the yellow 
fever epidemic of 1793 and wrote a dramatic account of it that went through four 
editions in three months [so mine is the last!] and sold 10,000 copies.  Some 
months later, he was the publisher of Dr. Rush's own account of the same 
calamitous time.

It is my intention to transcribe and index the entire book of 160 pages.  
However, that is a very time-consuming work and in the effort to make this 
individual information available as soon as possible, I submit, first, this is a 
transcript of pages 121 – 159 of the 4th  and probably last edition of Carey's 
book.  I have used the spelling (only changing the ancient f to the modern s) 
and punctuation as published by CAREY.  I have transposed the List of the Dead 
so that the last name is first.       Marjorie B. Winter
 
List of the names of the persons who died in Philadelphia, or in different parts 
of the union, after their departure from this city, from August 1st, to the 
middle of December, 1793.  {Footnote, p. 121:  This list has been partly 
collected from the church-books of all the different congregations, and partly 
from the information received by several persons who have been employed to make 
enquiry at every house in the city and liberties.  Though very great pains have 
been taken, and expense incurred, in its arrangement, still it is not given as 
fully complete and accurate.  But, it is hoped, that its defects and errors are 
but a few, and, considering the difficulty of the business, such only, as will 
meet the reader's ready indulgence.)