The U.S. Public Health Service · Episode 11 of 34 · 30 min
Yellow Fever: The Disease That Forced Washington Into Public Health
Yellow fever built federal public health in America. The 1793 Philadelphia catastrophe emptied the capital, the 1878 Mississippi Valley epidemic produced the National Quarantine Act, and an Army commission in Cuba proved the mosquito theory, with William Gorgas's mosquito war following. The cure was an Army and Cuba triumph, but the quarantine machinery the epidemics forced into being became the federal service's lasting power.
Who's who
- Absalom JonesFree African Society leader who organized nursing of the sick in 1793
- Richard AllenFree African Society leader who organized nursing of the sick in 1793
- Benjamin Rush+2 more episodesPhiladelphia physician who embodied mistaken theories of the era
- Carlos Finlay+2 more episodesCuban physician who proposed the mosquito hypothesis in 1881
- Walter Reed+2 more episodesHead of the Army Yellow Fever Commission in Cuba
- Jesse Lazear+1 more episodeCommission member who died in the mosquito experiments
- William C. Gorgas+1 more episodeArmy sanitarian who cleared Havana and the Panama Canal of mosquitoes
- Rutherford B. Hayes+1 more episodePresident who signed the 1878 National Quarantine Act
Where it happens
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania+6 more episodesCity emptied by the 1793 epidemic
- Lower Mississippi ValleyRegion of the 1878 epidemic
- Havana, Cuba+1 more episodeCity cleared of yellow fever by mosquito control
- New Orleans, Louisiana+3 more episodesSite of the last U.S. epidemic in 1905
- Panama Canal Zone+1 more episodeWhere Gorgas's mosquito control made the canal possible
Timeline
- 1793Yellow fever kills about 5,000 in Philadelphia
- 1878Lower Mississippi Valley epidemic; National Quarantine Act signed
- 1881Finlay publishes the mosquito hypothesis
- 1900-1901Reed commission proves mosquito transmission in Cuba
- 1905New Orleans suffers the last U.S. yellow fever epidemic
Still debated
Death tolls for the 1878 epidemic range from about 16,000 to 20,000. Credit for the mosquito discovery is shared between Finlay's hypothesis and the Reed commission's proof, and eradication was an Army and Cuban achievement, not the Public Health Service's.
← PreviousThe Diminishment, Part II: The Modern Stepchild (1980s–2026)Next →Cholera: The Blue Death That Nationalized Quarantine (1832–1893)
Connected episodes in other series
Thirty Years LateThe Physician to Soldier Pipeline · Episode 3Also features Carlos Finlay, Jesse Lazear
Conquering the Jungle: How a Doctor Nobody Believed Won the Panama CanalPanama: Crossroads of Empires · Episode 9Also features Carlos Finlay, Walter Reed
The Exclusion ActGold Mountain · Episode 7Also features Rutherford B. Hayes
The Republic's Nervous SystemNeither Snow Nor Rain · Episode 1Also features Benjamin Rush