Yellow fever, although it may not sound that bad, was terror inducing for the people of the 1800s.Highly contagious with a huge death rate, the disease has a right to terrify. It could spread through cities as fast as a hawk and was often terminal. The disease itself is quite gruesome, but that pales in comparison to how fast can kill. Two cities in the US were affected by this disease. There was no cure at the time, and even today we can only prevent it before it occurs. Yellow fever sent the U.S. government fleeing its capital. Without its history, the disease is very unpleasant.
There are many different symptoms of Yellow fever, ranging from changes in skin color to vomiting. Spread by mosquitoes, Yellow fever has an incubation period which lasts for 3-6 days leading to the acute phase of symptoms. These symptoms consist of fevers, headaches, muscle aches in the back and knees, a sensitivity to light, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, dizziness, and red eyes, face, or tongue (Mayo Clinic, Yellow Fever).
Following that, the next phase occurs; this phase is called the toxic phase (Mayo clinic). One of the most noticeable symptoms is when the victim’s skin turns yellow with purple blotches. This change in skin tone is also known as jaundice (History.com, This day in history, August 13th). The purple blotches were patches of skin where blood vessels burst, coloring the skin. Internal bleeding doesn’t stop under the skin. Bleeding also occurs in the stomach, which causes people to vomit blood; this looks like black vomit. The disease gets even more gruesome. After a while with the disease, your liver and kidney fail resulting in a backflow of poison waste from digested food and water. Delirium, seizures and comas both occur in this phase as well as a slow hear rate (Mayo Clinic). These symptoms are so well known because outbreaks happened quite often. Just 150 years ago, an outbreak almost destroyed the entire city of Memphis.
The Memphis outbreak started when a man on a quarantined steam boat escaped onto the Memphis coast. The steam boat was quarantined because of a Yellow Fever outbreak on board. The escapee ate at a local restaurant. The next day the infected man was hospitalized and sent to President’s Island (a peninsula in southwestern Memphis) for quarantine (History.com, This day in history, August 13th). However, the damage was already done. The owner of the restaurant, Kate Bionda, died on August 13th (History.com, This day in history, August 13th).Yellow Fever spread like wildfire through the city. Many people tried to flee the city, and a large amount of the remaining people died. The interesting thing is, this was not the first outbreak, nor would it be the last. Four outbreaks occurred before the 1878 outbreak; however none were as devastating (Historic-Memphis). The 1878 outbreak caused over five thousand deaths. The one directly before it, in 1873, caused two thousand deaths and was the second most destructive. However, there were nowhere near as many people who caught the disease in 1878 than in 1873. In 1878, seventeen thousand people were affected with Yellow fever, while in 1873 only five thousand people were infected (Historic-Memphis). Memphis was not the only city with Yellow fever problems.
In Philadelphia, the year 1793, an outbreak occurred. Started by French colonists from Haiti fleeing a slave revolution, mosquitos transferred the disease during the hot summer. Philadelphia’s swamps were the perfect place for the mosquitos to breed. They came in swarms, transmitting the disease from one person to another. Benjamin Rush was a quite famous physician in Philadelphia who quickly identified the epidemic as Yellow Fever. He believed that the source of the fever came from a bag of spoiled Coffee beans by the docks. Benjamin Rush bled his patients and administered mercury to try to cure them. But because of Mercury’s poisonous properties, which were unknown at the time, this made the patients more ill. Eventually, a new doctor from Haiti stepped up and headed the hospital. He did not believe that yellow fever was contagious and disapproved of Rush’s work. In the end, 5,000 out of the 45,000 people living in Philadelphia died of Yellow fever, and another 17,000 left the city (Harvard Libraries) But however bad it might seem in the US, the disease is far more contagious in the places where it feels at home.
Yellow fever was brought to South America and the Caribbean by the Atlantic Slave Trade. Yellow fever flourished in South America because, with its hot, humid climate, it felt like Africa, and with plenty of Native Americans and European Colonists who didn’t have a natural resistance to the disease, Yellow fever had plenty of victims. Yellow fever still stays in South America and Central America. You can see examples of this during the building of the Panama Canal.
In the Panama Canal, problems were not just political and architectural. Plagues like malaria and yellow fever infected the workers (Harvard Libraries). The French had already given up making the Canal because of the diseases, and now the Americans were trying it. With 20,000 worker deaths for the French, it was the only logical choice. However, the Americans wouldn’t give up. They named William Crawford Gorgas as the Chief Sanitary Officer to try to prevent malaria and Yellow fever. In 1904, the discovery that Yellow fever was spread by mosquitos helped Gorgas in his fight against the diseases. Combined with his sanitation methods he used in Cuba, he stopped the diseases from spreading and kept workers healthy until the Canal was finished.
Yellow fever is a truly horrible disease. It has two stages; the first is not very bad and has symptoms like a fever, but the second can be deadly. It spread to two large US cities killing a large percentage and making other people flee, including the federal government. The disease is practically unstoppable without the right sanitation methods. It can spread through cities faster than wildfire, and can do just as much damage. But after a while, It can return. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that anything could be done about the disease. Yellow Fever is still to this day very dangerous and something you would want to avoid at all costs. Is the 1800s farther away from the present day than we think?
There are many different symptoms of Yellow fever, ranging from changes in skin color to vomiting. Spread by mosquitoes, Yellow fever has an incubation period which lasts for 3-6 days leading to the acute phase of symptoms. These symptoms consist of fevers, headaches, muscle aches in the back and knees, a sensitivity to light, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, dizziness, and red eyes, face, or tongue (Mayo Clinic, Yellow Fever).
Following that, the next phase occurs; this phase is called the toxic phase (Mayo clinic). One of the most noticeable symptoms is when the victim’s skin turns yellow with purple blotches. This change in skin tone is also known as jaundice (History.com, This day in history, August 13th). The purple blotches were patches of skin where blood vessels burst, coloring the skin. Internal bleeding doesn’t stop under the skin. Bleeding also occurs in the stomach, which causes people to vomit blood; this looks like black vomit. The disease gets even more gruesome. After a while with the disease, your liver and kidney fail resulting in a backflow of poison waste from digested food and water. Delirium, seizures and comas both occur in this phase as well as a slow hear rate (Mayo Clinic). These symptoms are so well known because outbreaks happened quite often. Just 150 years ago, an outbreak almost destroyed the entire city of Memphis.
The Memphis outbreak started when a man on a quarantined steam boat escaped onto the Memphis coast. The steam boat was quarantined because of a Yellow Fever outbreak on board. The escapee ate at a local restaurant. The next day the infected man was hospitalized and sent to President’s Island (a peninsula in southwestern Memphis) for quarantine (History.com, This day in history, August 13th). However, the damage was already done. The owner of the restaurant, Kate Bionda, died on August 13th (History.com, This day in history, August 13th).Yellow Fever spread like wildfire through the city. Many people tried to flee the city, and a large amount of the remaining people died. The interesting thing is, this was not the first outbreak, nor would it be the last. Four outbreaks occurred before the 1878 outbreak; however none were as devastating (Historic-Memphis). The 1878 outbreak caused over five thousand deaths. The one directly before it, in 1873, caused two thousand deaths and was the second most destructive. However, there were nowhere near as many people who caught the disease in 1878 than in 1873. In 1878, seventeen thousand people were affected with Yellow fever, while in 1873 only five thousand people were infected (Historic-Memphis). Memphis was not the only city with Yellow fever problems.
In Philadelphia, the year 1793, an outbreak occurred. Started by French colonists from Haiti fleeing a slave revolution, mosquitos transferred the disease during the hot summer. Philadelphia’s swamps were the perfect place for the mosquitos to breed. They came in swarms, transmitting the disease from one person to another. Benjamin Rush was a quite famous physician in Philadelphia who quickly identified the epidemic as Yellow Fever. He believed that the source of the fever came from a bag of spoiled Coffee beans by the docks. Benjamin Rush bled his patients and administered mercury to try to cure them. But because of Mercury’s poisonous properties, which were unknown at the time, this made the patients more ill. Eventually, a new doctor from Haiti stepped up and headed the hospital. He did not believe that yellow fever was contagious and disapproved of Rush’s work. In the end, 5,000 out of the 45,000 people living in Philadelphia died of Yellow fever, and another 17,000 left the city (Harvard Libraries) But however bad it might seem in the US, the disease is far more contagious in the places where it feels at home.
Yellow fever was brought to South America and the Caribbean by the Atlantic Slave Trade. Yellow fever flourished in South America because, with its hot, humid climate, it felt like Africa, and with plenty of Native Americans and European Colonists who didn’t have a natural resistance to the disease, Yellow fever had plenty of victims. Yellow fever still stays in South America and Central America. You can see examples of this during the building of the Panama Canal.
In the Panama Canal, problems were not just political and architectural. Plagues like malaria and yellow fever infected the workers (Harvard Libraries). The French had already given up making the Canal because of the diseases, and now the Americans were trying it. With 20,000 worker deaths for the French, it was the only logical choice. However, the Americans wouldn’t give up. They named William Crawford Gorgas as the Chief Sanitary Officer to try to prevent malaria and Yellow fever. In 1904, the discovery that Yellow fever was spread by mosquitos helped Gorgas in his fight against the diseases. Combined with his sanitation methods he used in Cuba, he stopped the diseases from spreading and kept workers healthy until the Canal was finished.
Yellow fever is a truly horrible disease. It has two stages; the first is not very bad and has symptoms like a fever, but the second can be deadly. It spread to two large US cities killing a large percentage and making other people flee, including the federal government. The disease is practically unstoppable without the right sanitation methods. It can spread through cities faster than wildfire, and can do just as much damage. But after a while, It can return. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that anything could be done about the disease. Yellow Fever is still to this day very dangerous and something you would want to avoid at all costs. Is the 1800s farther away from the present day than we think?
