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Path of the pale horse

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Fourteen-year-old Lep is apprenticed to a village doctor, steadfastly following his father's dying dream for his son. However news arrives from Philadelphia that the city has been stricken with Yellow Fever, so Lep takes off to rescue his sister visiting there. His faith in medicine and his ability as a healer are put to the test in the infectious city. The citizens do not realzie the role of mosquitoes in spreading this deadly disease; thus they fall victim to quacks and their own unscrupulous servants.

Lep battles with more than malaria as he tries to covnince his older sister that she is the victim of a clever mountebank; and his kindly benefactor that his servants are plotting to rob him blind. Lep's fith in Medicine is severely shaken, but he learns about life, death and most importantly, himself, as he comes of age in the city named for Brotherly Love.

Not to be placed on any Must-Read list, this book still has much to recommend it in an elementary classroom. It represents Historical Fiction but also reveals to young people how primitive the medical practices were in post-Revolutionary times. How doctors treated malaria and other diseases is a topic often neglected in standard History books. An interesting tale with a good plot which will educate young readers.

This was a very good book about a boy who is an apprientice, who goes to philly to get his sister during a spell of the Yellow Fever. Along the way he gets seperated from his master, can't find him, and also can't find his sister