ALCHEMIC APPROACH TO FOUR HUMORS IN RELATION TO THE FOUR ELEMENTS AND ZODIACAL SIGNS.
HOW HURRICANES WORK
THE STORM THAT SENT ALEXANDER TO NEW YORK was a hurricane—one of the most violent forms of storm on the planet. Hurricanes gather after the heat of summer has warmed the ocean. Warm, humid air rises, causing an area of low pressure below.
Air rushes in to balance the pressure. This starts a cycle where air from areas with higher air pressure zooms into areas of low pressure. In the right conditions, a spinning clot of clouds and wind forms, and this wheel of zooming air pushes the warm water ahead of it, creating a storm surge that can increase the average water level fifteen feet.
MEDICAL PRACTICES IN THE 1700s
PEOPLE IN ALEXANDER’S TIME FACED A VARIETY of diseases that could be deadly, painful, irritating, or all three: malaria, typhus, influenza, smallpox, whooping cough, tuberculosis, dysentery, scurvy, arthritis, and worms.
ALCHEMIC APPROACH TO FOUR HUMORS IN RELATION TO THE FOUR ELEMENTS AND ZODIACAL SIGNS.
People then didn’t understand that bacteria and viruses can cause disease, nor was it clear that an underlying disease was separate from its symptoms. Rather, they believed disease occurred when the body’s four humors—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—fell out of balance. As a result, medical treatments could be hit or miss and, in some cases, dangerous.
There were five main methods of treating illness: bleeding, blistering, vomiting, purging, and sweating. Doctors also used herbs, bark, and leaves, as well as toxins such as mercury, and even applied leeches (sometimes to inflamed genitalia suspected of harboring sexually transmitted illnesses).
YELLOW FEVER
THIS DEADLY VIRUS, SPREAD BY MOSQUITOES, probably killed Alexander’s mother. Symptoms begin with headache, fever, nausea or vomiting, and sore muscles. After a few days, the symptoms abate. In some cases, however, the virus returns with a vengeance after the brief period of quiet, savaging the kidneys and liver.
This phase is what gives the disease its name, because the liver damage causes yellow skin and eyes. Organ damage can also make victims vomit black blood. These internal hemorrhages are fatal to 20 percent to 50 percent of the people who develop the second stage of the disease—and why bleeding was not a safe or effective treatment.
TYPHUS
BEFORE HE WAS SHOT TO DEATH, PHILIP HAMILTON contracted typhus, sometimes called ship, jail, or camp fever.
This virulent illness causes fever, chills, and delirium, and later causes a rash that covers everything but the face, palms, and soles. It can also cause brain inflammation and, without treatment, death.
Typhus is transmitted through the bites of lice, fleas, and ticks and can be cured with antibiotics.