The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our HistoryIn this account, a journalist traces the course of the infectious disease known as yellow fever, “vividly [evoking] the Faulkner-meets-Dawn of the Dead horrors” (The New York Times Book Review) of this killer virus. Over the course of history, yellow fever has paralyzed governments, halted commerce, quarantined cities, moved the U.S. capital, and altered the outcome of wars. During a single summer in Memphis alone, it cost more lives than the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, and the Johnstown flood combined. In 1900, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba to discover how yellow fever was spread. There, they launched one of history's most controversial human studies. Compelling and terrifying, The American Plague depicts the story of yellow fever and its reign in this country—and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year. With “arresting tales of heroism,” (Publishers Weekly) it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease. |
Contents
A House Boarded Shut | 1 |
The American Plague | 5 |
Memphis 1878 | 17 |
Carnival | 19 |
Bright Canary Yellow | 34 |
The Doctors | 42 |
A City of Corpses | 57 |
The Destroying Angel | 69 |
Insects | 166 |
Vivisection | 177 |
Did the Mosquito Do It? | 181 |
Guinea Pig No 1 | 191 |
Camp Lazear | 198 |
Blood | 221 |
The Etiology of Yellow Fever | 228 |
Retribution | 230 |
Greatly Exaggerated | 87 |
The Havana Commission | 95 |
Reparations | 102 |
Cuba 1900 | 107 |
A Splendid Little War | 109 |
Siboney | 116 |
An Unlikely Hero | 126 |
A Meeting of Minds | 141 |
The Yellow Fever Commission | 154 |
The Mosquito | 242 |
United States Present Day | 249 |
Epidemic | 251 |
A Return to Africa | 257 |
The Vaccine | 267 |
History Repeats Itself | 274 |
Elmwood | 281 |
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The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That ... Molly Caldwell Crosby No preview available - 2007 |
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Aedes aegypti Africa Agramonte Albert Truby American Andrus Armstrong arrived began blood Board of Health building Camp Columbia Camp Lazear Carlos Finlay Carroll's CHAPTER Constance Cuba death died disease doctors Elmwood Emilie experiments George Miller Sternberg Gorgas Guitéras Havana held Hench collection Hench Walter Reed History hospital human immune infected James Carroll Jesse Lazear John Kean Kissinger later Lawrence Reed Lena letter low fever Mabel malaria Mardi Gras Mary's Memphians Memphis Library Mississippi monkeys Moran morning never night nurse Orleans Papers patients Philip physician plague quarantine Reed wrote Reed's river Sanarelli September ship slave soldiers Souder South spread Sternberg Street surgeon taken Theiler tion tropical Truby's typhoid U.S. Army University of Memphis vaccine Vaughan volunteers Walter Reed Walter Reed Collection Warner wife William Yellow Fever Board Yellow Fever Commission yellow fever epidemic Yellow Jack York