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The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History (2003)

di Molly Caldwell Crosby

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8652724,678 (3.8)41
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," it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.… (altro)
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enjoyed it-like Microbe hunters section on Yellow fever, but fleshed out a bit more ( )
  cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |
A lot of history I didn't know - it's always nice to learn something new. Well researched and well written, it did slow down considerably in the latter parts as it devolved into a detailed biography of Walter Reed. But still a wonderful book. ( )
  dhaxton | Feb 15, 2024 |
Amazingly interesting. So many medical details that helped explain a lot to me about how viruses and vaccines work and the history of how all of that comes to be during an epidemic. It also made me realize how nasty living before modern conveniences was and how anyone made it through and humans still exist is incredible. Molly is a wonderfully thorough storyteller. ( )
  WellReadSoutherner | May 28, 2023 |
A very weak book. The author is not a scientist nor a historian and it shows. She has pieced together information from articles, books, and her own assumptions, to tell a story -- with assumed dialogue, character emotions and descriptions of the weather and places. At times, she writes of the virus like she really believes it is strategically motivated and targets the scientists trying to eradicate it. It's really too bad, because she obviously did a great deal of research but then stretched her interpretation and sources beyond credibility

Her use of language is frustratingly imprecise, starting with the title. Let me break that into two parts. First, there is nothing in the story that is "untold". It's all been told before. The book is structured as a retelling. Second, "the Epidemic that Shaped our History", with that in the title you would expect some discussion in the book of how yellow fever "shaped our history", but there is none. The book is a series of vignettes about how the virus was experienced, then about how a group of doctors showed it was transmitted by mosquitos. The focus is on the experiences of individuals, and not on the impact the virus had on history. So that was annoying.

( )
1 vota northwestknitter | Mar 28, 2021 |
Like so many things in medical and scientific history, there are many false paths, posturing (by people claiming knowledge or work they didn't have). Thus, like so many other medical and scientific advances, it took 20 years from when a researcher first presented the mosquito as the vector (he was ridiculed) to when it was accepted and action taken to protect people. Meanwhile, a lot of medical personnel died working on the problem.

"In July 1878 the city of Memphis posted a population of 47,000. By September 19,000 remained and 17,000 of them had yellow fever." (Page 47)

"Modern day epidemic psychologist have described a total collapse of conventional order – fear pervades, the sick go uncared-for, people are persecuted and moral controversies arise." (Page 53)

"In the 1870s, hospitals were notorious for spreading disease more often than curing it. People even opted to have surgery performed at home, rather than risk infection in an operating room." (Page 59)

"Physicians reported seeing as many as 100 to 150 patients daily. Their treatments ranged from the practical to the truly bizarre, they all were remarkably similar in there ineffectiveness." (Page 60)

I was astonished at the breadth of resources the author researched in creating this book. ( )
  bread2u | Jul 1, 2020 |
“American Plague” is not as swift or dramatic as the outbreaks it profiles. The story line through the first half of the book is patchy, jumping from Memphis to Cuba to the Spanish-American War, pausing often to provide the background of one or another minor character. The names come at you like mosquitoes in a sultry Tennessee dusk: an irritating swarm, too many to keep track of. There’s no one to hook arms with and march through the chapters. Though to be fair, Crosby’s in a narrative pickle: What’s a writer to do when her characters keep dropping dead 48 hours after she introduces them? The mosquitoes in this book have longer life spans.
aggiunto da John_Vaughan | modificaNY Times, Mary Roach (Jun 26, 2011)
 
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Nothing is an accident. Fever grows in the secret places of our hearts, planted there when one of us decided to sell one of us to another. - John Edgar Wideman, Fever
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The fever attacked each person in the Angevine family, one after the other, until none were well enough to help the others. It hit suddenly in the form of a piercing headache and painful sensitivity to light, like looking into a white sun. At that point, the patient could still hope that it was not yellow fever, maybe just a headache from the heat. But the pain worsened, crippling movement and burning the skin. The fever rose to 104, maybe 105 degrees, and bones felt as though they had been cracked. The kidneys stopped functioning, poisoning the body. Abdominal cramps began in the final days of illness as the patient vomited black blood brought on by internal hemorrhaging. The victim became a palate of hideous color: Red blood ran from the gums, eyes and nose. The tongue swelled, turning purple. Black vomit roiled. And the skin grew a deep gold, the whites of the eyes turning brilliant yellow.
"I can think of no other disease who killed so many scientists studying it."
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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," it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.

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