Yellow Fever

WASHINGTON - A solemn final moment came Wednesday for Walter Reed Army Medical Center when Army commanders rolled up maroon and green flags, symbols of the soul of the military unit that ran the hospital, and placed them in cloth cases, never to be unfurled again. Hundreds of soldiers and staff gathered under a white tent on a beautiful morning to observe the symbolic and funereal end of what Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker called "the most treasured military medical center in the world.

It was the deadliest, most catastrophic, gut-wrenching event in Philadelphia history. For four months, just about everything else in what was then America's largest city - the capital of a new nation - stopped while the populace either fled in terror, died or fought for their lives. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the worst yellow-fever outbreak on the East Coast. Many local historians find the late summer and fall of 1793 the most fascinating and dramatic period in city history.

IN A CITY that has made history a backbone of a multibillion-dollar tourist trade, it might surprise the average citizen how little he or she knows about Philadelphia's history outside the narrow window of 1776. That's one reason why we were quite taken with a new multipart documentary series on the city's history being produced by former mayoral candidate and Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority board chief Sam Katz. Katz has produced two out of potentially 12 segments of "Philadelphia, the Great Experiment," a lively documentary on the city.

Philadelphia has endured a lot of trauma: British occupation, anti- Catholic bloodshed, Spanish flu, Red scares, race riots, Mafia wars, MOVE wars, AIDS. But nothing approaches the devastation, drama and threat to the city's existence as the great yellow-fever epidemic of 1793. During late summer and fall of that year, commerce and government practically ceased. Half the population fled while 5,000 died. Just burying the victims was a challenge in a city paralyzed by fear.

It took less than 100 days. Ten percent of Philadelphia's population died in the yellow fever epidemic that devastated this city in 1793. Memories of that disaster spurred Congress to create the Public Health Service 200 years ago: July 16, 1798. The small corps of physicians - the first group of federal employees who had to meet testing requirements to be hired - was charged with caring for merchant marines. We've relegated yellow fever to the history books, but the Public Health Service continues to be a not-so-silent partner in our challenge to the hazards that put our lives at risk every day. Across the street from Independence Hall, not far from the final resting place of many victims of that long-ago epidemic, the PHS wages its battle from the regional office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

That chill wind that howled through window and tree all day yesterday was more than just a harbinger of winter. It was an echo of another cold snap 200 years ago - a frost that ended three months of disease and death in the City of Brotherly Love. The yellow fever epidemic of 1793 laid waste to the young republic's capital and largest city. It killed 5,000 of the Philadelphia area's 50,000 residents and sickened thousands more. About half the rest fled, including George Washington, Pennsylvania Gov. Thomas Mifflin, and others who could afford to leave.

During the last decade of the 18th century, there were a number of yellow fever epidemics in Philadelphia. Outbreaks of this dread disease occurred in 1793, 1797 and 1798, killing nearly 10,000 people, according to S.P. Wetherill's Philadelphia History (1916). City officials linked the epidemics to ships from foreign countries docking in the port of Philadelphia. The only way to deal with contagious diseases was to isolate victims. In 1799 the city government bought 10 acres in Essington on the Delaware to establish a quarantine station.

She has held the same tortured pose for more than 130 years, her face contorted, her mouth open wide in a scream. Bony hands press against her sides, and strands of strawberry-blond hair fall behind her. Who is this mysterious woman at the Mütter Museum in Center City? How and when did she die? And what can modern science tell us about her? One night last week, after the museum closed, radiographers, forensics experts and technicians attempted to pry the secrets from the so-called "soap lady" using high-tech portable X-ray equipment.

It was the summer of 1798, and fear ruled in Philadelphia. For the second time in five years, a devastating epidemic of yellow fever was sweeping through the nation's capital. Wealthy and influential residents, including President John Adams, fled to the countryside in droves, as they had learned to do during prior outbreaks. Those who could not leave were at the mercy of the virus, which attacked the liver, caused bleeding and vomiting, and sent people running into the streets screaming in delirium.

In the summer of 1793, people in Philadelphia began dying of a mysterious disease, later identified as yellow fever. By the end of the year, the illness had killed one in 10 Philadelphians, yet the devastation also strengthened the city. Determined to prevent future outbreaks, leaders created the Water Works, revived public parks and improved hospital care. Former mayoral candidate Sam Katz and his son Philip tell this tragic, gruesome, yet inspiring story in the latest installment of their 12-part video documentary on this city's history titled, Philadelphia: The Great Experiment.

Editor's note: Due to a production error, this story did not appear in Tuesday's Daily News. It is being repeated in full today. PHILADELPHIA: THE GREAT EXPERIMENT. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, 6ABC. By ellen gray Daily News Television Critic IF FILMMAKER Ken Burns had had Sam Katz's budget, we might still be in the early innings of "Baseball. " But Katz, the former mayoral candidate, who, along with his son, Philip, has been at work for a few years on a documentary series on the history of Philadelphia, is making progress.

IN A CITY that has made history a backbone of a multibillion-dollar tourist trade, it might surprise the average citizen how little he or she knows about Philadelphia's history outside the narrow window of 1776. That's one reason why we were quite taken with a new multipart documentary series on the city's history being produced by former mayoral candidate and Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority board chief Sam Katz. Katz has produced two out of potentially 12 segments of "Philadelphia, the Great Experiment," a lively documentary on the city.

Who would have thought Sam Katz would become an accomplished documentary filmmaker? That talent was never on display when he ran for mayor again and again and again. But Katz has turned his efforts in a new direction, and it has been to Philadelphia's benefit. The second in his Philadelphia: The Great Experiment series of documentaries will air at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday on WPVI, Channel 6. The documentary, Fever: 1793, looks at the yellow fever epidemic that hit Philadelphia that year.

In the summer of 1793, people in Philadelphia began dying of a mysterious disease, later identified as yellow fever. By the end of the year, the illness had killed one in 10 Philadelphians, yet the devastation also strengthened the city. Determined to prevent future outbreaks, leaders created the Water Works, revived public parks and improved hospital care. Former mayoral candidate Sam Katz and his son Philip tell this tragic, gruesome, yet inspiring story in the latest installment of their 12-part video documentary on this city's history titled, Philadelphia: The Great Experiment.

Azuka Theatre's production of Hope Street and Other Lonely Places by Genne Murphy is exactly the kind of show I want to like. A small theater company, a new script by a local playwright, and under the direction of Kevin Glaccum, who runs the company. I arrived with my cheerleader pom-poms at the ready. And then the play began. About halfway through Act 1, I whispered to my friend in the next seat, "Did it start yet?" Hope Street , set in Philadelphia, is built on so many cliches, so much inaction, with so pointlessly inconclusive a plot, and performed in a style of acting so naturalistic that it seems to be anti-acting, that the answer to my question was both yes, obviously, and no, not really.

The historic Lazaretto, a 213-year-old building that once served as a quarantine hospital and that is unlike anything still standing in North America, almost didn't make it. When its owner balked at a surging tax assessment, developers snapped up the property, salivating at the potential of the 10-acre Tinicum Township tract as a parking lot serving neighboring Philadelphia International Airport. But in the end, preservationists and a stubborn Board of Commissioners won out. There will be no field of cars on the Delaware County site where, starting in 1801, thousands of immigrants were treated as they arrived in the New World.

WASHINGTON - A solemn final moment came Wednesday for Walter Reed Army Medical Center when Army commanders rolled up maroon and green flags, symbols of the soul of the military unit that ran the hospital, and placed them in cloth cases, never to be unfurled again. Hundreds of soldiers and staff gathered under a white tent on a beautiful morning to observe the symbolic and funereal end of what Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker called "the most treasured military medical center in the world.

In the 1790s, Benjamin H. Latrobe was one of the most accomplished architects and engineers in England. When he immigrated to the United States in 1796, Latrobe brought new European standards and training in his field from Germany, France, and Italy. His innovative designs started the Greek Revival movement in American architecture, the first truly national style, resonating with classical ideals of tradition and democracy. After a brief period in Virginia, Latrobe moved to Philadelphia to design the city's public water system, a plan that took water from the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, piped it to Center Square (now City Hall)

It was the summer of 1798, and fear ruled in Philadelphia. For the second time in five years, a devastating epidemic of yellow fever was sweeping through the nation's capital. Wealthy and influential residents, including President John Adams, fled to the countryside in droves, as they had learned to do during prior outbreaks. Those who could not leave were at the mercy of the virus, which attacked the liver, caused bleeding and vomiting, and sent people running into the streets screaming in delirium.