Jeanette Keith

Mosquitoes transmit a virus that causes Yellow Fever. The virus originates in tropical climes, and is believed to have come to America from ships carrying slaves from Africa. After a few mild days, the disease can cause headache, nausea, and fever. Some victims recover and have lifelong immunity, but in ~15% of cases the fever returns, the heart, liver, and kidneys fail, and delirium sets in. The skin of victims turns dark yellow (hence Yellow Fever, also called "Bronze John"), they start hemorrhaging internally, and then may vomit blood so coagulated that it looks like black coffee grounds. Only a few people who vomit black survive, and their convalescence is slow.

In 1878, a long summer, a virulent viral strain, and a lack of understanding of how Yellow Fever is transmitted conspired to create a particularly terrible epidemic. The fever spread up the Mississippi Valley from New Orleans up to Illinois, killing ~18,000 people. Memphis was particularly hard-hit, due to geography and because corruption had left it without a modern water infrastructure. Instead, city dwellers stored their water close to their homes in barrels and cisterns, perfect for a Ae. aegypti mosquito infestation. And because Americans didn't realize mosquitoes transmit Yellow Fever until Walter Reed et al proved it in 1901, the doctors and nurses in 1870s Memphis could not effectively prevent the epidemic from spreading. They advised the uninfected populace to leave Memphis (due to quarantines in other areas, the refugees ended up in camps), provided what little medical care they could, and spent much of their time begging the rest of the US for food and charity and passing what supplies they had out. By the time cold weather hit and ended the epidemic, two-thirds of Memphis had contracted the fever, and more than a quarter of those had died.

Keith draws together personal journals and letters, newspaper articles, mortality reports, and city documents to create a multi-faceted portrait of the 1878 epidemic in Memphis.… (mer)