from his work of mercy by no thought of his own safety. He has
left us the following picture of the city during this terrible summer:

The disease appeared in many parts of the town remote from the spot
where it originated; although in every instance it was easily
traced to it. This set the city in motion. The streets and roads
leading from the city were crowded with families flying in every
direction for safety, to the country. Business began to languish.
Water Street, between Market and Race Streets, became a desert.
The poor were the first victims of the fever. From the sudden
interruption of business, they suffered for a while from poverty as
well as disease. A large and airy house at Bush-hill, about a mile
from the city, was opened for their reception. This house, after it
became the charge of a committee appointed by the citizens on the
14th of September, was regulated and governed with the order and
cleanliness of an old and established hospital. An American and
French physician had the exclusive medical care of it after the 22d
of September.

The contagion, after the second week in September, spared no rank
of citizens. Whole families were confined by it. There was a
deficiency of nurses for the sick, and many of those who were
employed were unqualified for their business. There was likewise a
great deficiency of physicians, from the desertion of some and the
sickness and death of others. At one time there were only three
physicians able to do business out of their houses, and at this
time there were probably not less than six thousand persons ill
with the fever.

During the first three or four weeks of the prevalence of the
disorder, I seldom went into a house the first time without meeting
the parents or children of the sick in tears. Many wept aloud in my
entry or parlor, who came to ask advice for their relations. Grief
after a while descended below weeping, and I was much struck in
observing that many persons submitted to the loss of relations and
friends without shedding a tear, or manifesting any other of the
common signs of grief.

A cheerful countenance was scarcely to be seen in the city for six
weeks. I recollect once, on entering the house of a poor man, to
have met a child of two years old that smiled in my face. I was