Yellow Fever

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.

S.L. Kotar of St. Louis has been writing (together with J.E. Gessler) for more than four decades, beginning with scripts for television’s Gunsmoke.

The late J.E. Gessler lived in St. Louis.

S.L. Kotar and J.E. Gessler

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 456
Bibliographic Info: 65 photos, glossary, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2017
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7919-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2628-4
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgment vi
Preface 1
1. Yellow Fever: A Perspective 5
2. The Early Colonial Period 11
3. A Question of Quarantine 31
4. The American Plague 44
5. “Particulars of the Plague in Philadelphia” 56
6. Most Unhappy Consequences 68
7. The Controversies of Yellow Fever Continue to Rage 76
8. The “Great Epidemic” of 1798 87
9. Is Yellow Fever More Deadly Than the Plague? 103
10. The Repository of Knowledge 118
11. Daily Mortality Is Now More Considerable 128
12. The Baneful Effects of Yellow Fever 138
13. Corpses Still Animated: Yellow Fever, 1820–1829 150
14. “All the evils which hell may contain” 169
15. The “Dead Book” 182
16. New Orleans: A City of Desolation 194
17. “To the manor born” 205
18. The “Quarantine War” and the “Quarantine Armada” 215
19. Deluge of Yellow Fever in the South and Worldwide Epidemics 223
20. The American ­Un-Civil War Period, 1860–1866 239
21. Holding On Until the Other Jack (Frost) Says “Enough!” 248
22. I Am “writing from the city of the dead” 254
23. Quarantine and Avarice, 1870–1873 267
24. “Falling Like Leaves” 283
25. “The grim monster still on his pathway”: The Outbreaks of 1878 293
26. “We are almost entirely ignorant” 305
27. Mosquitoes and Germ Theories 318
28. Panama and Nicaragua: Two Canals, Two Views 330
29. Cuba and the “Patriotic Disease” 340
30. After War: Science and Sanitation 354
31. Into the 20th Century 365
32. Panama! 370
33. “America to Slay the World’s Disease Germs” 378
34. Taking Steps Against a Deadly Enemy 393
Glossary 397
Chapter Notes 407
Bibliography 423
Index 433