Clara's Blog Post

 A Day in the Hospital Wing at the Eastern State Penitentiary During the Yellow Fever Epidemic

The hospital wing was quite populated and crowded with prisoners today. An illness called the yellow fever had been plaguing the majority of the prisoners, along with some of the guards and the doctors. This was a scary time, because I myself was worried about catching the plague, as a surgeon at the penitentiary. Majority of our prisoners required surgery to help with their recovery from the illness, if they could spare their survival for a few days. However, most of the prisoners didn’t make it past three days of intaking the illness. 

Today I was completing my daily rounds as I heard another one of my fellow doctor workmates call out, “Code RED!” This meant that the doctors in the wing needed to revive and resuscitate the patient. I quickly ran to the patient’s hospital cell and quickly provided him with a heart massage to assist with his blood circulation. Immediately after we resuscitated the prisoner, we quickly brought him to the operating room. My team of doctors and I quickly prepared to go into surgery with our patient. We illuminated our surgery lamp, which was so perplexed and big, and included four bright light bulbs in the bowl of the lamp. With the light on, the time had arrived for us to commence our operation on the patient. Medical  supplies were very limited here at the penitentiary. As a result, it was very difficult to operate on the patient. However, after five long and fatiguing hours, our surgery was complete, and our patient had survived from his open heart surgery. The feeling of joy and confidence after the surgery left me with the thought of, “One more patient survived the yellow fever, and I received the opportunity to save his life.” After work I could go home with the feeling and thought that one more person survived this horrendous disease. 

 I went home after the operation that I performed earlier during the day at the penitentiary. As I walked home, I realized life outside of the prison was also very worrisome because several people had fled the city to escape the plague of the yellow fever. However, I made a commitment to the penitentiary to help serve the sick prisoners, and the staff of doctors, surgeons, and nurses were very limited during this time due to people fleeing the city because of the illness. Philadelphia was such a quiet, peaceful, and mellow city without all the people and children, along with animals and cars along the streets. But, it’s quite enjoyable at times because sometimes your day at the penitentiary can be quite disheartening with the amount of patients and the results of how they react to the yellow fever, and all you need is some peace and quietness to help you contemplate on your decisions and steps you’ve made throughout the day. 

I should prepare myself for tomorrow to arrive because as the days go on, the unknown becomes even more effaced.