Yellow fever appeared in the U.S. in the late 17th century. The deadly virus continued to strike cities, mostly eastern seaports and Gulf Coast cities, for the next two hundred years, killing hundreds, sometimes thousands in a single summer.
In response to his groundbreaking theory on the cause of yellow fever, Carlos Finlay was called a "crank" and a "crazy old man." The derision hurt the doctor whose homeland was devastated by the disease, but he would live to see his work vindicated.
Walter Reed is known today for the Army medical center that bears his name. But a century ago he was known as the Army officer who helped defeat one of the great enemies of the time: yellow fever.
When Jesse Lazear died from yellow fever, he left a wife, a newborn child, and an infant. He also left a lasting contribution to the scientific understanding of the disease.
In 1793 Philadelphia was the nation's largest city and its capital, home to prominent citizens like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton. It was also the site of the most fearsome epidemic to strike the young nation.
There were comparatively few cases of yellow fever during the Civil War. Peacetime brought a boom of trade as improved rail service and shipping allowed people and goods — as well as disease — to travel easily in the united nation. By 1878, conditions were ripe for a powerful epidemic of yellow fever in the Mississippi Valley.
On February 13, 1898, the USS Maine exploded in a Havana harbor, killing 268 U.S. seamen. Blaming the country that controlled Cuba, the United States on April 25 declared war against Spain. U.S. troops then prepared to descend on an island where tropical diseases would prove to be their greatest enemy.
Since its first documented case in the 17th century, a great mystery surrounded yellow fever. What was its cause? Theories included "fomites" — contaminated objects like clothing and bedding from yellow fever patients — and airborne particles. It took a group of scientists in Cuba at the turn of the 20th century to discover the real answer.
In 1905 the final yellow fever epidemic in the United States took place in New Orleans, the city that had seen some of the nation's worst outbreaks. Though the danger of mosquitoes transmitting the disease had been established in 1900, five years later the city was still unprepared.
