The last time they politicized the treatment for an epidemicAmerican Thinker, May 3, 2020, Howard Richman
It was 1793. George Washington was President. Philadelphia was the U.S. capital. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a Philadelphia physician and former surgeon-general of Washington’s army, was the de facto head of the Department of Health of the new country.
When a yellow-fever epidemic hit Philadelphia, President George Washington fled to Virginia. Dr. Rush stayed behind and worked hard to quarantine and treat the sick. But his treatment, according to Ron Chernow in his biography of Alexander Hamilton, probably did more harm than good:
In treating yellow fever, Rush adopted an approach that now sounds barbaric: he bled and purged the victim, a process frightful to behold. He emptied the patient’s bowels four or five times, using a gruesome mixture of potions and enemas, before draining off ten or twelve ounces of blood to lower the pulse. For good measure, he induced mild vomiting. This regimen was repeated two or three times daily. (p. 449)
Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton stayed in the Philadelphia area, where both he and his wife caught yellow fever. But instead of submitting to Dr. Rush’s standard treatment, they found an old friend from the Caribbean, Dr. Edward Stevens, who quickly cured both of them using quinine, a treatment that he had learned about in Scotland and St. Croix. According to Chernow:
Having treated yellow-fever victims in the islands, Stevens dissented from the American dogma of bloodletting and bowel purges, which he thought only debilitated patients. He argued for remedies that were “cordial, stimulating, and tonic.†To strengthen patients, Stevens administered stiff doses of quinine called “Peruvian bark†as well as aged Madeira [a drink that has about 1 mg zinc per liter]. (p. 449)
Politicization of Quinine in 1793More:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/the_last_time_they_politicized_the_treatment_for_an_epidemic.html
