a very unpleasant or unhealthy smell . In early America, many people thought that miasma (also called “bad air” or “night air”) caused most diseases including cholera and yellow fever. David Cohen Nassy, the Surinamese doctor who treated yellow fever patients in Philadelphia, thought miasma might be what spread the disease. We know today that this wasn’t the case, but early scientists weren’t completely wrong! The stagnant water that caused the bad smells often contained bacteria or bred the mosquitoes who did spread diseases. When they got rid of the bad water (or moved away from it), people were often safe from the diseases.
