Postmasters in other towns used long handled tongs to dip Philadelphia’s mail in stemming vats of vinegar. Nearby cities placed a quarantine on travelers from Philadelphia and on their luggage. By November the epidemic had subsided, leaving 4,044 deaths in its wake. As an afterthought to the epidemic, Rush and other community physicians recommended that the swamps be cleared and the warfs areas be cleansed. These pitifully inadequate suggestions show the inability of 18th and 19th Century medicine to deal with this and other epidemics which would strike several other American cities before the Civil War, most notably the outbreaks of cholera in 1832 and 1849, as well as several yellow fever epidemics.