As the population fled or died, few were left to attend to nursing and burying duties. Rush, who believed that blacks were immune to yellow fever, asked members of the African Society to come forward and care for to the sick and the dead. Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, two free black men, volunteered. In a few weeks Jones, Allen and others were bleeding hundreds of people a day under Rush’s direction, as well as nursing patients and carrying coffins.

Their efforts, though praised by Rush, were scorned by the white public as being profiteering and extortionist. In response, Jones and Allen published their own description of their experiences.

About two months into the epidemic, however, Rush was proven wrong and blacks began to fall ill, dying from yellow fever at about the same rate as whites.