Yellow Fever

This is a well-written history of the yellow fever epidemics that ravaged Philadelphia, New Orleans and other locales from the late 1700s through the 19th century. Dickerson describes the panic that spread through Philadelphia in 1793, when 4,000 people died from a disease of unknown origin marked by high fever, black vomiting and coma. As interesting as the medical tale are the social aspects, such as the role of the city's blacks, who believed they were immune to yellow fever, in treating its victims. It was not until 1881 that Juan Carlos Finlay, a Cuban doctor, correctly concluded that the disease was spread by infected mosquitoes. His work was validated by Dr. Walter Reed and others during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and paved the way for preventive measures. Dickerson suggests that yellow fever is a prime candidate for use as a biological weapon, and he considers disturbing evidence that global warming could bring a resurgence of the virus in North America.-Publishers Weekly One of Dickerson's more alarming assertions is that yellow fever, far from eradicated, is making a comeback in certain areas of the world. There have been reports of recent outbreaks in South America and Africa, and Dickerson builds a case that global warming and terrorists could make our nation a target for another pandemic. His book offers much to think about as we confront the pesky insects of summer. -Larry Cantwell, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Golly, what a nice book this is. Young people today rarely know about yellow jack and the amazing story how its cause and transmissions were unraveled at the cost of lives of brave volunteers and a number of the scientists researching the disease ... The author felt compelled to explore the use of yellow fever as a biological weapon (maybe, but difficult to do) and to suggest that global warming would provoke the reemergence of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, and yellow fever. Certainly, after Katrina and Rita, I hurried to look up the distribution of A. aegyptii in Louisiana and even called my state health department to see what it knew. Unfortunately, I was unable even to contact anyone who had any knowledge of medical entomology. Thankfully, the victims of the storms evaded the horrible diseases they might have suffered ... This is a nice book; read it. -Cecil H. Fox, Science Books and Films.