The American Plague
Page 30
A Return to Africa
Character development of Adrian Stokes came primarily from Greer Williams’s The Plague Killers, written in 1969. Some additional information about Stokes, as well as some of the details about the Rockefeller compound in Yaba, were found in Charles Bryan’s A Most Satisfactory Man: The Story of Theodore Brevard Hayne, Last Martyr of Yellow Fever.
Descriptions of the Rockefeller Foundation were gathered from Williams’s book and the website for the Rockefeller Foundation. John M. Barry’s Influenza also provided some material about the historical significance of the Rockefeller Institute and Rockefeller Foundation.
The two quotes cited in this chapter were taken from Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague, written in 1994, and Paul De Kruif’s Microbe Hunters, written in 1926.
The Vaccine
Biographical information about Max Theiler and his work with the 17-D yellow fever vaccine came from Greer Williams’s books The Virus Hunters and The Plague Killers. Williams was a contemporary of Theiler and was able to interview him personally for his book.
History Repeats Itself
The majority of updated information about yellow fever was taken from the World Health Organization.
Additional information about the attempts to eradicate Aedes aegypti from the United States was found in Andrew Spielman and Michael D’Antonio’s book Mosquito. The quote about America going to war with Spain, in part, because of yellow fever was taken from their book.
Information about the Asian tiger mosquito and its discovery in Memphis came from Paul Reiter and Richard Darsie’s “Aedes Albopictus in Memphis, Tennessee (USA): An Achievement of Modern Transportation,” published in Mosquito News, 1984. Reiter was the entomologist who found the tiger mosquito in Memphis, TN. Additional details came from Gary Taubes’s “Tales of a Bloodsucker—Asian Tiger Mosquitoes,” published in Discover, July 1998.
The recent study about the proteins on the surface of the yellow fever virus was published in an article in Virology, July 5, 2005. The study of the way a flavivirus interacts with interferon during an immune response was published in the Journal of Virology, September 2005.
The quote regarding A. aegypti mosquitoes established in urban areas was taken from the article “Yellow Fever: A Decade of Re-emergence,” by S. E. Robertson, et al, the Journal of the American Medical Association, 1996.
Epilogue: Elmwood
The majority of the descriptions of Elmwood were based on several visits there to look through their historical collections and an interview with superintendent Sunny Handback just before he retired in November 2005. The reference to the terms burial and cemetery were taken from the book Elmwood: In the Shadow of Elms. I also read through Elmwood’s ledger of burials for 1878-1879.
Selected Bibliography
Archives and Collections
American Lloyd’s Register of American and Foreign Shipping 1865, “Emily B. Souder.”
Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia
The Jefferson Randolph Kean Papers
The Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection
Public Health Papers and Reports, presented at the Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association, Buffalo, NY, September 16 -20, 1901
Senate Document No. 822
The Wade Hampton Frost Papers
Walter Reed Letters
The William Bennett Bean Papers
Dee J. Canale, M.D., Yellow Fever and Medical History Private Collection
Elmwood Cemetery Charles C. Parsons File Ledger for August and September 1878 burials at Elmwood William J. Armstrong, Armstrong Family File
Health Sciences Historical Collection, University of Tennessee
Library of Medicine Simon R. Bruesch Collection
Library of Congress, Rare Books Collection
Conclusions of the board of experts authorized by Congress to investigate the yellow fever epidemic of 1878: being in reply to questions of the committees of the Senate and House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, upon the subject of epidemic diseases. Washington, DC: 1879.
Proceedings of the Board of Experts authorized by Congress, to investigate the yellow fever epidemic of 1878: Meeting held in Memphis, Tenn., December 26th, 27th, 28th, 1878. Washington, DC: 1879.
Sigsbee, Charles Dwight. The Maine. New York: The Century Co., 1899.
“Yellow Fever Bill.” Washington, DC: 1879.
Memphis History Exhibit, Pink Palace Museum
Mississippi Valley Collection, University of Memphis
Caleb Goldsmith Forshey Diaries
Charles G. Fisher Papers
De La Hunt Papers
Eldon Roark Papers
Hughetta Snowden Papers
Jefferson Davis Papers
Mary Louise Costillo Nichols Scrapbook
Pinch District Collection
Porter-Rice Family Papers
U.S. Department of Agriculture Weather Bureau, Memphis Station Records, 1878
National Archives and Records Administration
Records of Public Buildings Service
Record Group 112
National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Collection
Albert Ernest Truby Papers (1898-1953)
Fever Epidemic at Columbia Barracks Collection
George Miller Sternberg Papers (1861-1912)
Walter Reed Papers (1898-1902)
New York Academy of Medicine
“Record of the Yellow Fever Commission’s Work.” Archibald Malloch Collection.
Record of American and Foreign Shipping 1871, “Emily B. Souder.”
Yellow Fever Collection, Memphis Library
Charles Carroll Parsons Papers
General Colton Greene File
George C. Harris Papers
Howard Association Collection
John H. Erskine File
John Ogden Carley Papers
Lena A. Warner File
Louis Schuyler Papers
Summary of Minutes of Board of Health, City of Memphis, 1870-1905
William J. Armstrong Papers
Books and Articles
Agramonte, Aristides. The Inside History of a Great Medical Discovery. Havana: Times of Cuba Press, 1915.
Altman, Lawrence K., M.D. Who Goes First? Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Fever 1793. New York: Aladdin, 2002.
Baker, Christopher. Cuba. Third Edition. Emeryville, CA: Avalon Travel Publishing, 2004.
Baker, Thomas. “Yellowjack: The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 in Memphis, Tennessee.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. 42, No. 3 (1968).
Barry, John M. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. New York: Viking Penguin, 2004.
Bean, William B., M.D. Walter Reed, A Biography. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1982.
Bemiss, S. M. “Report upon Yellow Fever in Louisiana in 1878.” New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, n.s., XI (1883): 82-86.
Best, S., et al. “Inhibition of interferon-stimulated JAK-STAT Signaling by tick-borne Flavivirus of NS5 as interferon antagonist.” Journal of Virology (Sept. 2005).
Biennial Report—Memphis Board of President of Fire and Police Commissioners of the Taxing District (Memphis), Shelby County, Tennessee, to the Governor of the State. December 1, 1880.
Bloom, Khaled J. The Mississippi Valley’s Great Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1993.
Bond, Beverly G., and Janann Sherman. Memphis: In Black and White. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing, 2003.
Brands, H. W. The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
Bray, R. S. Armies of Pestilence: The Impact of Disease on History. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1996.
Bristow, Eugene. “From Temple to Barn: The Greenlaw Opera House in Memphis, 1860-1880.” West Tennessee Historical So
ciety Papers, XXI, 1967.
Bruesch, Simon Rulin, M.D. “The Disasters and Epidemics of a River Town: Memphis, Tennessee, 1819-1879.” Reprinted from Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, Vol. 40, No. 3 (July 1952).
Bruesch, Simon Rulin, M.D. “Yellow Fever in Tennessee in 1878.” Journal of the Tennessee Medical Association, Part I (December 1978), Part II (February 1979), Part III (March 1979).
Bunnell, Joseph. “Killer Virus.” University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston Quarterly. Winter 2001: 16-19.
Burnside, Madeleine, and Rosemarie Robotham. Spirits of the Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Buser, Lawrence. “City Still Bears Scars of Epidemic Century Ago.” The Commercial Appeal, June 18, 1978.
Bynum, W. F. Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Capers, Gerald M., Jr. The Biography of a River Town, Memphis: Its Heroic Age. New Orleans: Tulane University, Published by Gerald M. Capers, 1966.
Carrigan, Jo Ann. The Saffron Scourge: A History of Yellow Fever in Louisiana. Lafayette: University of Louisiana Press, 1994.
Carrigan, Jo Ann. “Yellow Fever: Scourge of the South.” Disease and Distinctiveness in the American South. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1988.
Carroll, J. “A Brief Review of the Aetiology of Yellow Fever.” New York Medical Journal and Philadelphia Medical Journal 79 (1904): 241-45, 307-10.
Carter, Henry Rose. Yellow Fever: An Epidemiological and Historical Study of Its Place of Origin (1931).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Fatal Yellow Fever in a Traveler Returning from Amazonas, Brazil, 2002.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (April 19, 2002): 324-25.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Fatal Yellow Fever in a Traveler Returning from Venezuela, 1999.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (April 14, 2000): 303-5.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Response to an Epidemic of Yellow Fever.” (November 3, 2005).
Choppin, Samuel. “History of the Importation of Yellow Fever into the United States, 1693-1878.” Public Health Papers, American Public Health Association, Vol. 4 (1877-1878).
Cloudesley-Thompson, J. L. Insects and History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1976.
Coleman, William. Yellow Fever in the North: The Methods of Early Epidemiology. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
Community of St. Mary, the Sisters of St. Mary at Memphis: With the Acts and Sufferings of the Priests and Others Who Were There With Them During the Yellow Fever Season of 1878. New York, 1879.
Connell, Mary Ann Strong. “The First Peabody Hotel: 1869 -1923.” West Tennessee Historical Society Papers, Vol. 28-30 (1974): 76.
Constance and Her Companions, the Martyrs of Memphis.
Coppock, Helen, and Charles Crawford. Paul Coppock’s Midsouth, Vol. III (1976-1978). Nashville: Williams Printing, 1993.
Coppock, Paul. Memphis Memoirs. Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1980.
Coppock, Paul. Memphis Sketches. Memphis: Friends of Memphis & Shelby County Libraries, 1976.
Coppock, Paul. “Memphis’ No. 1 Fighter of Yellow Fever.” The Commercial Appeal, June 9, 1974.
Costillo, Mary L. “Reminiscences of My Childhood and Youth.” West Tennessee Historical Papers 12 (1958): 80-1081.
Crane, Stephen. This Majestic Lie. (1900).
Crawford, Charles W. Yesterday’s Memphis. Miami, FL: E. A. Seemann Publishing, 1976.
Cushing, Harvey. The Life of Sir William Osler. London: Oxford University Press, 1940.
Dando, Mary. “Our Immigrant Heritage: The Irish in Memphis.” Memphis Magazine (September 2003).
Davis, J. H. St. Mary’s Cathedral 1858-1958. Memphis: Published by the Chapter of St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1958.
Davis, J. H. “Two Martyrs of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878.” West Tennessee History Society Papers, Vol. 26 (1972): 20-39.
Davis, James. The History of the City of Memphis. Memphis: Hite, Crumpton & Kelly Printers, 1873.
De Kruif, Paul. Microbe Hunters. New York: Harcourt, 1926.
Delaporte, F. History of Yellow Fever: An Essay on the Birth of Tropical Medicine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991.
Del Regato, J. A. “Jesse William Lazear: The Successful Experimental Transmission of Yellow Fever by the Mosquito.” Medical Heritage, Vol. 2, No. 6 (November-December 1986).
Desowitz, Robert S. The Malaria Capers: Tales of Parasites and People. New York: W. W Norton, 1991.
Desowitz, Robert S. Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria? New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.
Diaz, Henry F., and Gregory J. McCabe. “A Possible Connection between the 1878 Yellow Fever Epidemic in the Southern United States and the 1877-78 El Niño Episode.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, September 30, 1998: 21-28.
Dromgoogle, Dr. J. P. Yellow Fever Heroes, Honors, and Horrors of 1878. Louisville: John P. Morton, 1879.
Durham, Herbert and Walter Myers. “Yellow Fever Expedition.” British Medical Journal, September 8, 1900.
Eaton, Tim. “Family of Yellow Fever Victim Loses Its Lawsuit.” Corpus Christi Caller-Times, May 14, 2004.
Eckstein, Gustav. Noguchi. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1931.
Ellis, J. H. Yellow Fever and Public Health in the New South. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1992.
Ellis, John H. “Disease and the Destiny of a City: The 1878 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Memphis.” West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 28 (1974): 75- 89.
Elmwood: History of the Cemetery. Memphis: Boyle and Chapman Printers, Publishers and Binders, 1874.
Erskine, John H. “A Report on Yellow Fever as It Appeared in Memphis, Tenn., in 1873.” American Public Health Association, Public Health Papers and Reports, Vol. I (1873).
Finger, Michael. “The Martyrs of Memphis.” Memphis Magazine, 1999.
Finger, Michael. “When Cotton Was King.” Memphis Magazine, City Guide, 2003.
Finlay, Carlos E. Carlos Finlay and Yellow Fever. New York: Oxford University Press, 1940.
Fitch, S. S. The Family Physician. New York, 1876.
Fowinkle, Eugene, M.D., and Mildred Hicks. “Development of Public Health and the Yellow Fever Epidemics in Memphis.” History of Medicine in Memphis. Jackson, TN: McCowat-Mercer Press, 1971.
“Fragment of YFV May Hold Key to Safer Vaccine,” Medical News Today (July 17, 2005).
Garrett, Laurie. The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
“George Waring Obituary.” The New York Times, October, 30, 1898.
Gillett, Mary. “A Tale of Two Surgeons.” Medical Heritage, November /December 1985.
Goddard, J. Physician’s Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2003.
Goodman, Dr. Louis, and Dr. Alfred Gillman. The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. Second Edition. New York: Macmillan, 1955.
Gorgas, Marie. William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work. New York: Doubleday, 1924.
Gorgas, W. C. “Sanitation of the Tropics with Special Reference to Malaria and Yellow Fever.” Journal of the American Medical Association 52 (1909): 1075-77.
Gorn, Elliott J. Mother Jones. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
Gould, Lewis L. America in the Progressive Era, 1890-1914. New York: Longman, 2001.
Greenhill, E. Diane, R.N., B.S.N., Ed.D. From Diploma to Doctorate: 100 Years of Nursing. Memphis: University of Tennessee Press, 1988.
Groh, Lynn. Walter Reed, Pioneer in Medicine. New York: Dell Publishing, 1971.
Guitéras, Juan. “Experimental Yellow Fever at the Inoculation Station of the Sanitary Department of Havana with a View to Producing Immunization.” American Medicine, November 23, 1901.
Halle, Arthur.
“History of the Memphis Cotton Carnival.” West Tennessee Historical Society Papers, Vol. I (1952).
Harkins, John E. Metropolis of the American Nile, Memphis and Shelby County. Oxford, MS: The Guild Bindery Press, 1982.
Harris, George C. “Memorial Sermon Preached in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Memphis, December 22, 1878.” New York: 1878.
Hatcher, J. Edward, Jr. Gayoso Bayou. Memphis: St. Luke’s Press, 1982.
Hemmeter, John C. “Major James Carroll of the United States Army, Yellow Fever Commission, and the Discovery of the Transmission of Yellow Fever by the Bite of the Mosquito ‘Stegomyia Fasciata.’ ” American Public Health Reports, 1908.
Hicks, M. (ed.). Yellow Fever and the Board of Health, Memphis, 1878. The Memphis and Shelby County Health Department, 1964.
Higman, B. W. Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
“Horrors of Plague Live on Thru Years.” The Evening Appeal, December 27, 1932.
Howard, Leland Ossian. Mosquitoes: How They Live; How They Carry Disease; How They Are Classified; How They May Be Destroyed, 1901.
Hume, Edgar Erskine. “Sternberg’s Centenary, 1838-1938.” The Military Surgeon 84 (1939): 420-28.
Humphreys, Margaret. Yellow Fever and the South. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
“Hydropathy Used in Fever Epidemic.” The Night Desk, The Commercial Appeal, January 16, 1954.
“Incidents of the Scourge at the South.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, September 21, 1878.
Keating, J. M. The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878, in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis: Printed for the Howard Association, 1879.
Kelly, Howard A. Walter Reed and Yellow Fever. New York: McClure, Phillips, 1906.