The American Plague: The Untold Story Of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History

In a summer of panic and death in 1878, more than half the population of Memphis, Tennessee, fled the yellow fever epidemic. In her account, Crosby profiles several scientists, some of whom died in their fight to identify the cause of this disease that remains a threat to this very day.

In this account, a journalist traces the course of yellow fever, stopping in 1878 Memphis to "vividly evoke] the Faulkner-meets-'Dawn of the Dead' horrors,"*-and moving on to today's strain of the killer virus. 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.