A mosquito-borne epidemic that started to spread throughout Philadelphia in the 1790s made the nation’s then-capital totter under its impact, writes Fergus M. Bordewich for The Wall Street Journal.

As Robert Watson writes in his new book, America’s First Plague, the outbreak was “one of the worst epidemics in American history.”

Within three months, anywhere from 6,000 to 9,500 people died, constituting up to 20 percent of the city’s population at the time.

The plague that was sweeping Philadelphia was yellow fever. People died within hours of discovering symptoms in pools of vomit and blood.

Panic caused families to break apart in fear and people to nail shut the doors and windows of infected neighbors, essentially leaving them to die.

Nearly 17,000 people fled Philadelphia during the epidemic.

In the book, Watson reminds readers of the disastrous doctors’ methods of the times, but also the self-sacrifice of Philadelphia’s free black community, who threw themselves into rescue work.

And while the epidemic faded from memory over time, Watson does a marvelous job of reminding readers of this dramatic episode in our nation’s history.

Read more about the book in The Wall Street Journal.

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6abc’s Jim Gardner shines a spotlight on Philadelphia in 1793 as the yellow fever ravaged the city, killing 20-percent of Philadelphia’s residents.

In 1793, as the yellow fever plague raged through the streets of Philadelphia, doctors and residents alike were forced to improvise.