Fever

Dr. Rush is a major figure in Wideman’s story and the history of the fever. Based on the figure of Dr. Benjamin Rush, a leading scholar in American medical science, Wideman’s Dr. Rush is portrayed as a dispassionate scientist who is patronizing toward Allen and other workers in the city who aid the sick. Repeatedly in the story, he calls, “Allen, Allen,” to bring the minister to his side.

Dr. Rush popularized the theory that people of African descent were immune to the fever. He called on Richard Allen and the Free Black Society to aid him when all of his assistants were struck with the fever. In Wideman’s version of events, Rush is preoccupied with the measurable and quantifiable data available to him through the dissection of deceased bodies. Wideman portrays Rush from the perspective of Allen or Abraham, who describe him as either a savior or a charlatan. When Allen meets a loyal Black maid who has refused to abandon her mistress, even after her death, he wonders of his relationship with Allen, “[H]ere I was following in the train of Rush and his assistants, a functionary, a lackey, insulted daily by those I risked my life to heal” (150). His encounter with the maid leads him to understand the wider societal structures that force many Black people to be subservient to white people.

While Rush performs the medical services, Allen wonders at his seemingly unsympathetic attitude toward the fever’s victims. Rush is generally described as a cold character, particularly when compared to Allen, who feels deep despair at the sight of the fevered people and their caretakers. Rush’s approach to the bodies is contrasted with Allen’s emotional response, as Rush tends toward scientific language and data on an urgent journey of discovery while he cuts open bodies. While he wants to be an objective analyst, Wideman suggests that his study of anatomy and disease is shaped by a prejudicial understanding of racial difference.

Master Abraham is a Jewish merchant from Europe who becomes afflicted with the fever. He speaks with Allen and attempts to give him advice about how to navigate the prejudicial society that he, too, experienced across Europe and experiences in Philadelphia. Throughout history, antisemitic sentiment has blamed Jewish people for bringing plague and disease to cities (Barzilay, Tzafrir. Poisoned Wells: Accusations, Persecution, and Minorities in Medieval Europe, 1321-1422. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022). Abraham identifies with Allen’s grief about being both a pariah in the city and its called-upon savior.

Abraham echoes Allen’s crisis of faith, advising him to abandon the cause and return to his family. He perceives the work that Allen does as tragically useless, describing theirs as a suffering experienced by many, over and over again, according to God’s design. He describes God as “a bookseller,” saying,

He publishes one book–the text of suffering–over and over again. He disguises it between new boards, in different shapes and sizes, prints on varying papers, in many fonts, adds prefaces and postscripts to deceive the buyer, but it’s always the same book (154-55).

Locating the events of the fever in a tragic Biblical tradition, Abraham’s cynical deathbed speech alludes to the literary tradition of plague writing. This serves as meta-commentary on Wideman’s piece, which tells a far different story. Whereas Abraham sees this suffering as an inevitable part of God’s plan, Wideman’s story suggests that the fever is largely manmade—an upset of the harmony that nature intends.