Description
In this account, a journalist traces the course of the infectious disease known as yellow fever, “vividly [evoking] the Faulkner-meets-Dawn of the Dead horrors” (The New York Times Book Review) of this killer 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 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,” (Publishers Weekly) it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.
Author: Molly Caldwell Crosby
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 9/4/2007
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.81 lbs
Size: 8.22″ H x 5.58″ L x 1.08″ W
ISBN: 9780425217757
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