The American Plague

The American Plague PDF

Author: Molly Caldwell Crosby

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2007-09-04

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780425217757

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In 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.

Yellow Fever

Yellow Fever PDF

Author: S.L. Kotar

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2017-02-03

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 1476626286

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The terror of yellow fever conjures images of mass infection of soldiers during the Spanish-American War and horrific death tolls among workers on the Panama Canal. Medical science has never found a cure and the disease continues to present a threat to the modern world, both as a mosquito-borne epidemic and as a potential biological weapon. Drawing on firsthand accounts and contemporary sources, this book traces the history of the viral infection that has claimed countless victims across the United States, Central America and Africa, and of the global effort to combat this challenging and deadly disease.

An American Plague

An American Plague PDF

Author: Jim Murphy

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 9780395776087

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Recreates the devastation rendered to the city of Philadelphia in 1793 by an incurable disease known as yellow fever, detailing the major social and political events as well as the time's medical beliefs and practices.

Yellow Fever and the South

Yellow Fever and the South PDF

Author: Margaret Humphreys

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 1999-05-28

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 9780801861963

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In the last half of the nineteenth century, yellow fever plagued the American South. It stalked the region's steaming cities, killing its victims with overwhelming hepatitis and hemorrhage. Margaret Humphreys explores the ways in which this tropical disease hampered commerce, frustrated the scientific community, and eventually galvanized local and federal authorities into forming public health boards. She pays particular attention to the various theories for containing the disease and the constant tension between state and federal officials over how public funds should be spent. Her research recovers the specific concerns of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century South, broadening our understanding of the evolution of preventive medicine in the United States.

Epidemic Invasions

Epidemic Invasions PDF

Author: Mariola Espinosa

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-11-15

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0226218139

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In the early fall of 1897, yellow fever shuttered businesses, paralyzed trade, and caused tens of thousand of people living in the southern United States to abandon their homes and flee for their lives. Originating in Cuba, the deadly plague inspired disease-control measures that not only protected U.S. trade interests but also justified the political and economic domination of the island nation from which the pestilence came. By focusing on yellow fever, Epidemic Invasions uncovers for the first time how the devastating power of this virus profoundly shaped the relationship between the two countries. Yellow fever in Cuba, Mariola Espinosa demonstrates, motivated the United States to declare war against Spain in 1898, and, after the war was won and the disease eradicated, the United States demanded that Cuba pledge in its new constitution to maintain the sanitation standards established during the occupation. By situating the history of the fight against yellow fever within its political, military, and economic context, Espinosa reveals that the U.S. program of sanitation and disease control in Cuba was not a charitable endeavor. Instead, she shows that it was an exercise in colonial public health that served to eliminate threats to the continued expansion of U.S. influence in the world.