What were some of the innovative ways Americans fought disease during the Revolution? What were the risks and potential rewards of these methods?

One very famous one was an improvised vaccination. What people did (I think I read somewhere that this practice was observed in the slaves) was open skin of healthy people and place some liquid from woulds of sick people inside of it during an epidemic (such as smallpox) : this way the disease was more controlled.

It was risky (what if the person got seriously sick and died?) but it gave some hope of survival to those that would likely anyway get the disease. Especially soldiers, who were in big groups were susceptible to epidemics and it is believed that this way of vaccinating saved many lives.