Book Report on THE AMERICAN PLAGUE

The American Plague
The Untold Story Of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History.

by Molly Caldwell Crosby
Published: The Berkley Publishing Group and The Penguin Publishing Group
Copyright 2006 by Molly Caldwell Crosby


The American Plague is about the plague how a terrible disease shaped America's history. I am going to tell you all about the story. However to get the book best started, it is worth noting these critics descriptions of the book as they describe it so wonderfully I could not do it justice.

"A fascinating book about yellow fever, its unspeakable horrors and the uncommon valor that four doctors displayed in their quest to solve a devastating medical mystery."
-The Tennessean

and

"A first rate medical detective drama.." - The New York Times Book Review

The American Plague took place in Missississpi, West Africa, Southeastern Nigeria, the West Nile as well as New Orleans, Louisiana, on the slave ships, as in African trade, imports and exports and cargo ships. I'm not going to lie, this was a very complicated book that would have made anyone with a passion for epidemics and virial diseases jump with glee! I loved it!! The plot is extremely hard to summarize because there were many factors that went into the history in this book, the details, and the dates. It got so trivial that at times I felt as though I should have been taking notes. Yes, it was THAT good. I relish in my thoughts as I recall how the affects of the devistating disease, were black blood, dehydration, eventually dying from it. Some important things to know about Yellow Fever are no one is sure how yellow fever came to exist. no records show of it. The virous seeks out a healtlthy cell, overtakes it, impregnating it. Virus overall are parasites of cells and then slowly destroy them as they are used and abused by the cell, causing the body to decline in health and make a person deathly ill depending on the virus. Obviously, they are forms of bacteria. Once inside the bloodstream, a virus is programmed with DNA to produce the virus further. In, smallpox, open sores or leisures on the skin are the source of infection. With Influenza coughing exposes the virus to air, passing it on. In the case of HIV, the virus uses reproduction to infect men, women, and children. Yellow fever, however, is quite unique. It is spread by mosquitoes, although it cannot live outside the body for more than a few hours, it does not mutate as well as some other viruses, and fever, the main symtom of Yellow fever, is the body's attemt at expelling it from the body. It does not spread though air or touch. Quite simply put, it is interesting as I read about how mosquetos carried the virus on the dark holds below deck for many months and hatched their many larvae in the warm, damp, watery corneers and such and wouls ting passengers if I am right. Once the ship landed at port after picking up slaves from Nigeria, it would come back to New Orleans, Lousiana to drop them off and the mosquitoes would "get off" there. The ships would make many rounds and many slaves died on board and many people were affected and killed once the mosquitoes were released into the South. This happened all through the 1800's and no one knew the cause. Many died as a result. There were no main characters in this book because it was non fiction and it was more statistic based and an over view of on of the most fascinating virial diseases that was known to man. This book gave an exclamation and insight into how the disease was spread, its symptoms, affects and what life was like in the 1800's I highly recommend reading it.

2 excerts worth noting from the book are "Yellow Fever became the most dreaded disease in North America for almost two hundred years. It dod not kill in numbers as high as some of it's contemparieslike cholera, or smallpox, and it was not contagious; yet it created a panic and a fear few other dieases, ancient, or contemarary, can elicit."
and
"During its tenure in this country, yellow fever would inflict 500,000 casualties and 100,000 deaths." "The U.S capital would move from Philidelphia to Washington D.C., after a major yellow fever epidemic in 1793."