Phantom Menace: Dengue and Yellow Fever in Asia.

This article explores the entangled histories of dengue and yellow fever. It traces how historical conflations of these diseases deepened at the start of the twentieth century in the context of rising fears that yellow fever might spread to Asia. Advances in biomedicine, I suggest, reinforced notions of their kinship and generated competing theories that dengue either foreshadowed yellow fever in Asia or inoculated the region against it. This history in which the language and science of dengue and yellow fever shadowed one another offers a nonlinear narrative of scientific progress. Furthermore, as the so-called neglected tropical diseases resurge in the present, it elucidates how disease threats are read against one another. Thus, the article offers a historical context to ongoing discussions on disease emergence and pandemic preparedness.

The Dramaturgy of Epidemics.

My essay focuses on Charles Rosenberg's provocative and enduring ideal type of epidemic drama in three acts, which he assembled from a vast knowledge of disease history that stretched from the end of the seventeenth century to his then-present pandemic, HIV/AIDS of the 1980s. Reaching back to the Plague of Athens, my essay elaborates on Rosenberg's dramaturgy by questioning whether blame, division, and collective violence were so universal or even the dominant "acts" of epidemics not only before the nineteenth century but to the present. Instead, with certain pandemics such as yellow fever in the Deep South or the Great Influenza of 1918-20, unity, mass volunteerism, and self-abnegation played leading roles. Finally, not all epidemics ended "with a whimper" as attested by the long early modern history of plague. These often concluded literally with a bang: lavish planning of festivals of thanksgiving, choreographed with processions, innumerable banners, commissions of paintings, ex-voto churches, trumpets, tambourines, artillery fire, and fireworks.

The Myth of Innate Racial Differences Between White and Black People's Bodies: Lessons From the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In this commentary, I take up the question of why beliefs in fundamental, innate racial differences between Black and White people's bodies persist in medical discourse, despite evidence to the contrary.I locate the origin of some of these beliefs in the infamous yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1793. During that early public health crisis, White physicians and lay people erroneously thought that Black people were immune to yellow fever because of their race. I then highlight the efforts of Philadelphia's Black leaders during the epidemic-namely Absalom Jones and Richard Allen-to challenge the belief in fundamental and innate differences between Blacks and Whites.I conclude by asking us to consider how the false belief that there is something peculiar about Black people's bodies has become a feature, not an aberration, in the production of medical knowledge. Indeed, I point out how medical experimentation in the 20th century and in the marketing of new drugs in the 21st century have been buttressed by this persistent yet incorrect assumption that innate racial differences exist.

A Research Enclave in 1940s Nigeria: The Rockefeller Foundation Yellow Fever Research Institute at Yaba, Lagos, 1943-49.

This article examines the history of yellow fever research carried out in West Africa in the 1940s by Rockefeller Foundation scientists. It engages with a number of debates in the history of medical research in colonial Africa, including experimentation, the construction of the "field," and biosecurity.

Typhus, yellow fever and Medicine in Mexico during the French intervention / El tifo, la fiebre amarilla y la medicina en México durante la intervención francesa.

French intervention in Mexico (1861-1867) is particularly full of episodes of patriotic heroism in terms of military, politic and, even, religious affairs, however this history is also rich in episodes related to diseases and the evolution of Mexican scientific medicine practice, epidemics such as typhus (nowadays knows as rickettsiosis), yellow fever, or cholera. Principally, this context outlined the Mexican history and influenced the course of the nation. The epidemics served as fertile land for the development of medicine science leading by prominent physicians, particularly by doctor Miguel Francisco Jiménez.

El periodo comprendido entre 1861 y 1867, marcado por la ocupación extranjera, particularmente por Francia, es sin lugar a dudas rico en gestas de patriotismo sin igual en la historia de México por la coyuntura política, militar e incluso religiosa del periodo en cuestión; sin embargo, poco se ha abordado de manera concreta el estado que guardaban la salud y la ciencia médica en dicho periodo, lleno de episodios sumamente interesantes en cuanto a epidemias como el tifo, la fiebre amarilla o el cólera, sobre todo cuando estas enfermedades afectaron y marcaron el rumbo de la historia nacional, a la par con el desarrollo de la naciente medicina científica mexicana encabezada por varios médicos, en especial por el Dr. Miguel Francisco Jiménez.

Epidemics which never came: yellow fever (1883) and bubonic plague (1902-1903) in Baja California / Las epidemias que nunca llegaron: fiebre amarilla (1883) y peste bubónica (1902-1903) en Baja California.

This paper seeks to clarify the epidemic panorama that was generated in Baja California in the late nineteenth and early twentieth 20th century's, specifically that occurred in 1883 and 1902, years in which it is claimed occurred epidemics of yellow fever and bubonic plague respectively. However, as demonstrated in our study they never occurred due to social-demographic conditions in the area.

Este artículo busca aclarar el panorama epidémico que se generó en Baja California a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, específicamente el que se dio en 1883 y 1902, años en los que se afirma que ocurrieron epidemias de fiebre amarilla y peste bubónica, respectivamente. Sin embargo, como se demuestra en nuestro estudio, nunca ocurrieron debido a las condiciones sociodemográficas de la zona.

Lessons Learned from Emergency Response Vaccination Efforts for Cholera, Typhoid, Yellow Fever, and Ebola.

Countries must be prepared to respond to public health threats associated with emergencies, such as natural disasters, sociopolitical conflicts, or uncontrolled disease outbreaks. Rapid vaccination of populations vulnerable to epidemic-prone vaccine-preventable diseases is a major component of emergency response. Emergency vaccination planning presents challenges, including how to predict resource needs, expand vaccine availability during global shortages, and address regulatory barriers to deliver new products. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supports countries to plan, implement, and evaluate emergency vaccination response. We describe work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in collaboration with global partners to support emergency vaccination against cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, and Ebola, diseases for which a new vaccine or vaccine formulation has played a major role in response. Lessons learned will help countries prepare for future emergencies. Integration of vaccination with emergency response augments global health security through reducing disease burden, saving lives, and preventing spread across international borders.

Leaking Containers: Success and Failure in Controlling the Mosquito Aedes aegypti in Brazil.

In 1958, the Pan American Health Organization declared that Brazil had successfully eradicated the mosquito Aedes aegypti, responsible for the transmission of yellow fever, dengue fever, chikungunya, and Zika virus. Yet in 2016 the Brazilian minister of health described the situation of dengue fever as "catastrophic." Discussing the recent epidemic of Zika virus, which amplified the crisis produced by the persistence of dengue fever, Brazil's president declared in January 2016 that "we are in the process of losing the war against the mosquito Aedes aegypti." I discuss the reasons for the failure to contain Aedes in Brazil and the consequences of this failure. A longue durée perspective favors a view of the Zika epidemic that does not present it as a health crisis to be contained with a technical solution alone but as a pathology that has the persistence of deeply entrenched structural problems and vulnerabilities.

"A Little Seasoning Would Aid in the Digestion of Our Factums": Wit, Evidence, and the Evolving Form of Medical Debate in New Orleans, 1853-1868.

This history of the categorization of yellow fever explores the interchange between rhetoric and evidence in understanding the disease. Eighteenth-century models of medicine relied on rhetorical manipulation to convince readers of accuracy, unlike modern medicine, which claims objective evidence as the professional standard. But how did the physician as intellectual give way to the physician as scientist? This article analyzes the transition through a case study: J.-C. Faget, who famously discovered the definitive sign of yellow fever, and Charles Deléry disputed how doctors should attempt to understand the disease in New Orleans, a vital yet understudied medical center dominated by Francophone creole interests. It addresses the use of ideas about immunity to define racial, ethnic, and class differences; the rhetoric of health and medicine; and developing ontological theories of disease. It shows the struggle to employ intellectual realizations to understand this disease that cost the region dearly in lives and income.

The Fielding H. Garrison Lecture: "Break-Bone" Fever in Philadelphia, 1780: Reflections on the History of Disease.

In the Autumn of 1780 an epidemic hit the city of Philadelphia. The symptoms of the disease resembled those of present day dengue fever, and subsequent observers argued that the disease was in fact dengue. But was it? The question forces us to confront the challenges of retrospective epidemiology and how we examine the history of a disease. This paper examines the 1780 epidemic from two perspectives. First, it looks at evidence that the disease was dengue and examines what this tells us about the epidemic and the conditions that caused it. Second, it looks at the disease from the perspective of Dr. Benjamin Rush, who treated hundreds of patients during the epidemic. In other words, it examines the disease through the lens of eighteenth century medical ideas. The paper concludes that each approach is valuable and reveals different aspects of the relationship between society and disease.

[From pirates to virus: the Oropesa's journey]. / De piratas a virus: La travesía del Oropesa.

In 1902, being Chile a country free of yellow fever, the British steamship Oropesa arrived from Rio de Janeiro with three passengers suffering this disease. Captain Hayes rejected the quarantine imposed by the local Junta of Sanity in Punta Arenas and also in Coronel, following his journey with the sick passengers to Valparaiso, port where he accepted a brief quarantine and medical services for the most compromised of the three patients, who unfortunately died. The knowledge about yellow fever and the applicable epidemiological measures in that time in Chile come to us through the sessions of the Superior Council of Public Hygiene. The threat that implicated the presence of the Oropesa in Chilean coasts is compared with the arrival of British pirates and corsairs in the colonial centuries, before the independence, announced with the alarm cry charque (for Sharp) is coming to Coquimbo!

[Control discourses and power relations of yellow fever: Philadelphia in 1793].

1793 Yellow fever in Philadelphia was the most severe epidemics in the late 18th century in the United States. More than 10% of the population in the city died and many people fled to other cities. The cause of yellow fever in the United States had close relationship with slaves and sugar in Philadelphia. Sugarcane plantation had needed many labors to produce sugar and lots of Africans had to move to America as slaves. In this process, Aëdes aegypti, the vector of yellow fever had migrated to America and the circumstances of ships or cities provided appropriate conditions for its breeding. In this period, the cause of yellow fever could not be established exactly, so suggestions of doctors became entangled in political and intellectual discourses in American society. There was a critical conflict between Jeffersonian Republicanism and Federalism about the origin and treatment of yellow fever. Benjamin Rush, a Jeffersonian Republican, suggested urban sanitation reform and bloodletting. He believed the infectious disease happened because of unsanitary city condition, so he thought the United States could be a healthy nation by improvement of the public health and sanitation. He would like to cope with national crisis and develop American society on the basis of republicanism. While Rush suggested the improvement of public health and sanitation, the city government of Philadelphia suggested isolation of yellow fever patients and quarantine. City government isolated the patients from healthy people and it reconstructed space of hospital. Also, it built orphanages to take care of children who lost their parents during the epidemic and implemented power to control people put in the state of exception. Of course, city government tried to protect the city and nation by quarantine of every ship to Philadelphia. Control policies of yellow fever in 1793 showed different conflicts and interactions. Through the yellow fever, Jeffersonian Republicanism and Federalism had conflicted in politically, but they had interactions for control of the infectious disease. And with these kinds of infectious diseases policies, we can see interactions in local, national and global level.

Benjamin Rush, Edinburgh Medicine and the Rise of Physician Autobiography.

This chapter explores the place of Scottish medicine in the autobiographical writing of the Philadelphia physician and signer of the American Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush, who studied at the University of Edinburgh from 1766 to 1768. It focuses on Rush's 'Scottish journal' (his account of his period of study in Edinburgh), his protracted feud from 1797 over his treatment of yellow fever with the English journalist, politician and agriculturalist William Cobbett, and his account in 'Travels through Life' of that feud and of the influence of Cullen on his medical theory and practice. The different rhetorical strategies used by Rush to defend his character and practice and his role in the rise of physician autobiography are examined.

How Racism and "Tropical Medicine" Built the Panama Canal.

At the turn of the 20th century, the physician William Gorgas led work that substantially mitigated mortality from mosquito-borne diseases among workers building the Panama Canal. The waterway launched the United States to political and economic superpower status by eliminating the need for risky maritime travel around the southern tip of South America, expediting exportation of US goods in international markets. Yet, as this article explains, innovations that curbed malaria and yellow fever were deeply rooted in racist foundations of capital and empire.

How Brazil joined the quest for a yellow fever vaccine. Interview by Claudia Jurberg and Julia D'Aloisio..

Brazil recently announced an agreement between its Bio-Manguinhos vaccine unit and two US companies to research and develop a new yellow fever vaccine. Claudia Jurberg and Julia D'Aloisio talk to Jaime Benchimol about the controversial history of the development of the vaccine that benefits millions of people today.

The best possible intentions testing prophylactic approaches on humans in developing countries.

Debates on human experiments in developing countries focus on ethical principles such as informed consent, accountability, involvement of the concerned communities, and the improvement of local health services. Public health specialists who conducted human experiments in Rio de Janeiro (1902-1905) and in Guatemala (1947-1948) believed, however, that they were acting in the best interests of local populations, were aware of the importance of informed consent, were closely collaborating with local health professionals, and were contributing to the development of local health structures. Nevertheless, their investigations went dramatically wrong. An initial desire to conduct ethically and scientifically sound studies was undermined by pressure to obtain results and to save the researchers' initial investment, the possibility of freely using hospitalized patients as experimental participants, uncritical help from local professional elites, and structural pitfalls of experimenting with severely deprived people. These elements can still be found in trials of preventive methods in the Global South.