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Yellow fever

850 bytes added, 03:36, 21 August 2011
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1882
==History of treatment==
Prior to the early 1900s, it was not generally understood that yellow fever is transmitted not by person-to-person contact, but by mosquitoes. The first scientific evidence that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes was obtained by Cuban physician and scientist [[Wikipedia:Carlos Finlay|Carlos Finlay]] in 1881, but his research was not generally accepted until a team lead by [[Wikipedia:Walter Reed|Walter Reed]] reached the same conclusion in 1901.
 
In 1884, after a particularly harsh epidemic two years prior, the Board of Health instituted a policy of refusing harbor entry to suspect vessels. The first vessel excluded was the bark ''Kedron'' of Rio de Janeiro. The ''Kedron'' then sailed for Quebec and lost her captain en route from yellow fever.
After the epidemic of 1905, the swamps around Pensacola were drained, resulting in the eradication of yellow fever in the area.<ref name="bigler">[http://www.doh.state.fl.us/Disease_ctrl/epi/Epi_Updates/1999/eu990415.html Bigler, William J. "Florida Past: Roots of Public Health in Escambia County"]</ref>
===[[1882]]===
On September 30, 1882, before the epidemic had concluded, the ''New York Times'' reported reported 783 cases of yellow fever in Pensacola, including 78 deaths.<ref>[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9401E2DF1F3EE433A25752C0A9669D94639FD7CF "The Yellow Fever Scourge; Rapid Spread of the Disease in Pensacola and Need of Aid"] The New York Times, September 30, 1882</ref> The New York Times also reported that "the state of Alabama has quarantined against Pensacola. Unless some arrangement can be made to avert the disaster, all trains will be withdrawn, and the city will be cut off from mails and supplies."<ref>[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E07E6DA1E3EE433A25751C0A96F9C94639FD7CF "Yellow Fever's Victims; A Scourge in the South -- A Quarantine Against Pensacola"] The New York Times, September 2, 1882</ref>
In a contemporaneous account of the 1882 epidemic, [[R. B. S. Hargis]], a physician who treated numerous yellow fever cases in Pensacola, reported that at the Pensacola Navy yard and in the adjacent villages of [[Warrington]] and [[Woolsey]], with a total population of between 1300 and 1400, there were 167 cases of yellow fever and 33 deaths.
Dr. Hargis reported "exceedingly stringent precautions around our city to prevent refugees communicating the disease."<ref>Hargis, R.B.S. [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2272478 "The Pensacola Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1882"]</ref>
 
{{cquote|The Spanish vessel ''Salita'' was responsible for a terrible epidemic in 1882, bringing the disease from Havana. There were 2,200 cases, 1,200 being Negroes. Only two of the latter died; but there were approximately 250 fatalities among the whites. Dr. James S. Herron was at the head of the hospital and gave devoted service to the ill. Dr. Robert B. S. Hargis, President of the County Board of Health, was an able assistant, as was the secretary, Dr. Whitney.|20px|20px|[[Occie Clubbs]], writing in the ''Florida Historical Quarterly''.}}
===[[1888]]===
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