The American Plague Summary

The book “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, written by John M. Barry, covers the progression of the Spanish influenza, especially in the United States. Barry focuses not only on the influenza itself, though, but also on the social influences that allowed the virus to flourish. The book covers how medical practices in the United States had risen up just in time to combat the virus, but, due to societal issues and the war, the doctors struggled in areas where they should have been successful.

Fever 1793 is a historical fiction novel written by Laurie Halse Anderson that describes how Yellow Fever affected lives of everybody during the three months of sickness and panic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Life today is more straightforward than it was in 1793 because of the technology. Fever 1793 is a story about a young girl, Matilda “Mattie” Cook, who faces challenges surviving in a Yellow Fever- struck city (Philadelphia). Mattie loses her grandfather on her journey of survival and her mother is nowhere to be seen, leaving Mattie to grow up and survive her journey alone. If the story was taking place in modern times, Mattie and the rest of Philadelphia would not struggle as much as they did in the story. The modern day technology that is here today allows this generation to progress through life smoother. Today’s technology would have a significant, positive impact on the community during 1793. If the people of Philadelphia had the knowledge of symptoms and treatments of Yellow Fever, they would have known for sure if the fever was occurring in the beginning and they would have also known how the fever was to

Chapter One of of Jim Murphy’s book, An American Plague, opens with the quote, ‘About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in among us” (Murphy 1). This quote is accredited to Mathew Carey in November, 1793. The term scourge is defined as, “a person or thing that cause great trouble of suffering,” and the term malignant is defined as, “tending to produce death or deterioration.” These are very strong terms with extremely negative connotative meanings. The figurative language which is evident in the quote at the opening of Chapter One is personification. Carey’s quote give yellow fever an eerie, human-like quality when he writes, “the destroying scourge, the malignant fever, CREPT in among us” (Murphy 1). CArey’s word choices and use of personification help to create a powerful image in the reader’s mind of the threat looming over the city of Philadelphia.\

In 1793 Philadelphia suffered from a deadly disease that spread all through the town; it was called yellow fever. The Philadelphia Doctors and the French doctors were attempting to treat yellow fever. The doctors had many ways to try to fix this, but they did not have the technology we do today. Yellow fever occurred 1793. The outbreak happened in Philadelphia. This sad event that killed many people was all because of infected mosquitoes. They came over with the ill refuges. About 2,000 to 5,000 people died. All in all, this was one of the one of the worst things to occur in history

Yellow fever was one of the most vicious diseases in the world and could create panic anywhere. This means that if you ever get the yellow fever then there is no cure and killed at an alarming pace. You wouldn't want to have the yellow

In her book, Pox Americana, Elizabeth A. Fenn takes on the challenge of writing about a little-known topic with large gaps in the existing research. Fenn states in the foreword that the previous research about smallpox focused on specific locations, "often with vague but tantalizing references to a larger background pandemic." I commend Fenn on her attempt to write about that large epidemic and I think that she successfully combined the facts and figures that spanned an entire hemisphere into her book.

The American Plague was written by Molly C. Crosby, who is as much as a researcher as she is an author. In 1648, a slave ship returning from Africa carried a few mosquitoes infected with a deadly virus know as yellow fever. The ship landed in the New World and thrived in the hot wet climate and on the white settlers. The New World has never come in contact with yellow fever and as a result no immunities have been built up. The virus obtained its name from the way it turns the victim’s skin and eyes a golden yellow. Victims also suffer from very high fevers, external and internal bleeding, and blackish vomit. In America yellow fever killed thousands of peoples, halted trade, and disrupted the government. Although many

The 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis proved to be fatal, killing almost all who got infected. The disease traveled up from New Orleans infecting and killing many on its way. Memphis was going through reconstruction and was becoming the center for merchants and travelers. Furthermore, Memphis began to become overly populated only increasing the devastation that would be caused by the yellow fever. This was a confusing period were even medical professionals did not know where the disease came from or how they could to stop it. The epidemic caused panic and challenged the state government of Tennessee and made changes to it that are still in effect today.

In the early 1900’s medicine was making some steps closer into some great improvements for health and better understanding of the human body. Doctors with sufficient knowledge of the human body and cures for diseases and viruses were scarce. People were much more concerned with government and politics, than health and medicine, until one of the greatest and most grotesque lethal pandemics that’s struck the earth in human history. This pandemic the “Spanish Flu” spread so rapidly and had an extremely high mortality rate. This was caused by the close contact of humans and poor cleanliness and sanitation, and the host (virus) and the body taking harsh action

The history of the United States began with Virginia and Massachusetts; their histories begin with epidemics of unidentified diseases. Smallpox was the worst and the most amusing diseases that were out. Smallpox were just killing down all the Native Americans, they didn’t know what to do with it all. The epidemic destroyed half of the Cherokee in 1738, in 1759 almost half of the Catawba’s, in the first years of the next century two-thirds of the Omaha’s and perhaps half of the population between the Missouri River and New Mexico.

The book The Great Influenza by John Barry takes us back to arguably one of the greatest medical disasters in human history, the book focuses on the influenza pandemic which took place in the year 1918. The world was at war in the First World War and with everyone preoccupied with happenings in Europe and winning the war, the influenza pandemic struck when the human race was least ready and most distracted by happenings all over the world. In total the influenza pandemic killed over a hundred million people on a global scale, clearly more than most of the deadliest diseases in modern times. John Barry leaves little to imagination in his book as he gives a vivid description of the influenza pandemic of 1918 and exactly how this pandemic affected the human race. The book clearly outlines the human activities that more or less handed the human race to the influenza on a silver platter. “There was a war on, a war we had to win” (Barry, p.337). An element of focus in the book is the political happenings back at the time not only in the United States of America but also all over the world and how politicians playing politics set the way for perhaps the greatest pandemic in human history to massacre millions of people. The book also takes an evaluator look at the available medical installations and technological proficiencies and how the influenza pandemic has affected medicine all over the world.

pandemics: the Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu, the Hong Kong flu and the terror and

Imagine a quick spreading rash throughout the entire body, leaving not a single space behind; every opening and crevice in your body, including your mouth and eyes covered in painful bumps accompanied by high fever and severe body aches. Flat red spots transforming into fluid-filled lesions and soon oozing out yellow pus, evidently emitting a pungent odor to anyone who dared get close. The live virus present in the darkening crusty scabs that would soon fall off only to leave behind a deep pitted scarred filled complexion on anyone who was fortunate enough to survive. These scars would be forever remembered as the hallmark for the smallpox epidemic which tormented the world for over 3,000 years. (Riedel “Deadly Diseases”).

The Yellow Fever virus came from Central or East Africa. With transmission between primates and humans, the virus has been spread from there to West Africa. The virus was probably brought to the Americas with the slave trade ships from 1492 after the first European exploration. The first case of Yellow fever was recorded in Mexico by Spanish colonists in 1648. Consequently, the virus started to spread also in North America. In Philadelphia in 1793, more than the 9% of the population die. The American government had to escape from the city that was the temporary capital. One of the most famous outbreaks happen in Europe in Barcelona in 1821.How explains the article "The 'plague' of Barcelona. Yellow Fever epidemic of 1821", the outbreak of

The yellow fever virus started in 3000 B.C.E and it was brought upon in the 1600’s by a ship of imported slaves traveling from Africa (“Yellow”6). The first and not the last epidemic of Yellow Fever was in 1730 in Spain. A total of 2,200 deaths happened during that epidemic (“Major”). Since the first epidemic, it was spread to America, in the cities of New Orleans,