Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds

Thomas A. Apel teaches history at Menlo College.

"An accomplished and concise book, it commands attention from the outset by reminding us of the importance of yellow fever in early US cities and clearly differs from previous books on the topic by uncovering the deeper set of intellectual commitments at work in the debate about the origins of the disease."—David Waldstreicher, City University of New York "While competing explanations for the yellow fever epidemics that swept the northeast are the primary subject, Apel persuasively shows how these understandings of disease were infused with theological and political assumptions. Lively and jargon-free, his book should find a wide readership among historians of medicine and of the Early Republic."—Sara Gronim, Long Island University "Apel delivers a panoramic view of the significance of the yellow fever controversy. The disease struck as an event in biological history, in which a virus and a mosquito were the principal actors. But its interpretation was a human affair, deeply embedded in society and culture. Apel has shown how the outbreaks on the eastern seaboard in the 1790s were understood in ways that reflected the political polarization of the era and its peculiar melding of scientific and religious thought. His prose is vivid and clear, and his discursive footnotes open up many possible directions for future inquiry. Readers will appreciate his contribution to solving the problem that vexed commentators at the time of the outbreaks themselves: that of interpreting a devastating series of epidemics as historical events with profound implications for human self-understanding."—Jan Golinski, H-Shear "Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds is an excellent contribution to the history of science, ideas, medicine, and politics in the early American republic. I recommend it highly to students of all of these fields."—Rebecca J. Tannenbaum, Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society "In this new monograph, Thomas A. Apel provides a compelling examination of the intellectual controversy surrounding outbreaks of yellow fever in the northeastern United States at the turn of the nineteenth century...Apel's work represents a welcomed addition to our knowledge of the yellow fever controversy. Even more profound, Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds provides an open window into the intellectual concerns of the United States' governing classes at the turn of the nineteenth century, exploring the political, religious, and naturalistic anxieties that plagued early Republican intellectuals."—Christopher Willoughby, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences "Thomas Apel's Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds: Science and the Yellow Fever Controversy in the Early American Republic undertakes an epistemological approach to the question of health knowledge in the early Americas. It is a beautifully written book about the series of yellow fever outbreaks between 1793 and 1805....Apel's book makes an important contribution that will be welcomed by scholars looking to write about the outbreaks."—Sari Altschuler, Early American Literature "Feverish Bodies is valuable for bringing North American perspectives on yellow fever into conversation with theology, chemistry, and medicine."—Michael A. Osborne, Science and Education

• Introduction1. Contexts and Causes2. "Declare the Past"3. "Nature is the Great Experimenter"4. "Let Not God Intervene"5. "In Politics as well as Medicine"; Or, The Arrogance of the EnlightenedConclusion: Conclusion