Overview

Long before Covid-19 ever terrorized the American public there was an even more insidious disease called Yellow Fever that brought America to its knees-and it is today threatening a deadly comeback thanks to the acceleration of climate change. In a vividly told narrative, filled with poignant and graphic scenes culled from historical archives, James L. Dickerson, author of Cirrhosis: An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed and Inside America's Concentration Camps: Two Centuries of Internment and Torture, recounts the history in this investigative book of one of the most feared diseases in American history. From the late 18th to the early 20th century, yellow fever killed Americans by the tens of thousands in the Northeast and throughout the South. Especially devastated by yellow fever were Mississippi, New Orleans, and Memphis, Tennessee. In Memphis alone, five thousand people died in 1878. Dickerson describes how public health officials gradually eliminated the disease from this country, so that by the mid-1950s it had ceased to be of much concern to the public at large. However, to this day no cure has been found. As a mosquito-borne viral infection, yellow fever is impervious to antibiotics, and it continues to wreak havoc in parts of South America and Africa. Focusing on the present, Dickerson discusses the potential threat of yellow fever as a biological warfare agent in the hands of terrorists. Also of concern to public health researchers is the effect of global warming on mosquito populations. Even a one-to-two degree warming enables disease-bearing mosquitoes to move into areas once protected by colder weather. He concludes with a discussion of current precautionary efforts based on interviews with experts and analysis of available studies. Both absorbing history and a timely wake-up call for the present, Yellow Fever is fascinating and important reading.

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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.

Author Information

James L Dickerson is an investigative journalist with 50 years experience. His most notable book is the investigative biography, Colonel Tom Parker: The Curious Life of Elvis Presley's Eccentric Manager. The book was purchased by Warner Bros. for the upcoming Baz Luhrmann film about Presley, starring Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker.After a career as a journalist for three Pulitzer Prize winning dailies, The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, the Clarion Ledger-Jackson Daily News, and the Delta Democrat-Times of Greenville (MS), James L. Dickerson began a career as a full-time author focusing on investigative history and investigative biography. He is the author of Cirrhosis: An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed.

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