Although Noah Webster is best known for compiling the first major dictionary of American English, he wrote about a wide range of literary, political, and medical topics. As an ally of Alexander Hamilton, Webster edited New York City’s leading Federalist newspaper. At a time when many Federalists blamed traffic with the Caribbean for introducing yellow fever to American ports, Webster argued that the disease had a domestic origin, which he believed would have major implications for the future of American cities.
So far as regards the police4 of a city, the whole doctrine of preventing or mitigating the injurious effects of bad air, is comprehended in the following articles — to remove the sources of the poison, or to dissipate it as much as possible.
To remove the sources of the evil, infinite care should be taken in building cities, to leave now low grounds or hollow places among the buildings, as receptacles of water and filth. The back yards should, in every case, be raised above the pavement of the streets, and the streets should be so raised, as to give a considerable descent into the adjoining river or sea. No trouble or expence will justify a neglect of this regulation. The health and lives of citizens absolutely depend on this precaution…. It should be an article of the police of every city, that no man should erect a house, without at the same time, raising the back yard, to give a descent into the street….
Water is perhaps the best purifyer of the houses and streets of cities, as well as of infected clothes. The use of water cannot be too liberal; but care should be taken that none of it remains to stagnate near buildings. Water imbibes the poison of foul substances, and therefore when houses, back yards, and streets are washed, the water should be enabled, by suitable channels, to run off into the sewers or adjoining river. If the natural surface of the earth is too level for this, no pains should be spared to remedy this inconvenience by artificial elevations. It is no excuse for neglecting these things, to say they are expensive; because they cannot be so expensive as epidemic diseases. The loss of business for one season, in a city such as Philadelphia or New-York, would build all the streets in this city, where the fever has been most fatal. But when we take into consideration the loss of life, the tears, the distresses of bereaved parents, and of helpless widows and orphans — the idea of expense, for the purpose of preventing such calamities loses all its terror. — Labor and perseverance will conquer all difficulties of this kind; and if all possible means of rendering cities healthy are not used, why are they built at all? Why should cities be erected, if they are only to be the tombs of men? A frequent recurrence of malignant and fatal epidemics will besides lessen the business of a town, and this sinks the value of real estate. It is therefore the proprietor’s interest as well as his duty to attend to every circumstance that can insure the health of his tenants….
The streets of a city should, if possible, be strait. — The stale notion of censuring uniformity in a city, is worthy only of weak minds. Crooked or winding streets tend to break the force of the wind…. It has been doubted whether wide streets in a large town are very beneficial; as the action of the sun on the pavement is violent, and the heat is increased, and as the quantity of shade is less in proportion in wide streets than narrow ones. But wide streets, if kept clean, are doubtless the most healthy, as they admit a larger quantity of pure air, and a more free circulation.
Source: Noah Webster, A Collection of Papers on the Subject of Bilious Fevers, Prevalent in the United States for a Few Years Past (New York: Hopkins, Webb, 1796), 206–10.
Evaluating the Evidence