I had never heard of the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee. In New Orleans, the repeated yellow fever epidemics that plagued the city throughout the 19th century are a common theme on historical plaques and tours around town, but despite repeated trips to Memphis, I wasn't familiar with this history. (I guess yellow fever isn't a hot topic at Graceland.) Anyway. Yellow fever is one of those dread diseases that, even if there is still no cure, we call all be thankful that we now know how to prevent. Incidentally, yellow fever was also one of the major killers of men building the Panama Canal.
Jeannette Keith begins Fever Season explaining the extent to which Memphis was a dirty, dysfunctional city. As she succinctly notes on page 27: "As a center for the cotton trade, Memphis was spectacularly successful. As a city, it was a failure." (Charlie LeDuff recently wrote an entire book premised on that latter statement as it pertains to Detroit today.) In any case, the Ae. aegypti mosquito breeds in fresh, clean water, like that the housewives across the city used to collect in cisterns each day. It is no surprise, then, that Memphis - and cities across the South - regularly experienced outbreaks of yellow fever. The 1878 outbreak was especially virulent, though, killing the vast majority of those who contracted it and decimating the entire population.
Fever Season offers a glimpse not only of a terrifying disease whose hallmark was the especially foul-smelling black vomit, but of the American South in the year immediately after Reconstruction. Although black and white worked side-by-side to nurse the sick and police the city, such commonality of purpose could not and did not last. In the closing pages, Keith builds the case for how the yellow fever epidemic laid the groundwork for Elvis's initial Memphis success some 75 years later.
No comments:
Post a Comment