Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I African beginnings
- Part II Immunities: epidemiology and the slave trade
- Introduction to Part II
- 2 Yellow fever in black and white
- 3 Bad air in a new world
- 4 Tropical killers, race, and the peculiar institution
- Part III Susceptibilitie
- Part IV Antebellum medicine
- Part V Sequelae and legacy
- Notes
- Bibliographic essay
- Index
2 - Yellow fever in black and white
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I African beginnings
- Part II Immunities: epidemiology and the slave trade
- Introduction to Part II
- 2 Yellow fever in black and white
- 3 Bad air in a new world
- 4 Tropical killers, race, and the peculiar institution
- Part III Susceptibilitie
- Part IV Antebellum medicine
- Part V Sequelae and legacy
- Notes
- Bibliographic essay
- Index
Summary
I ‘specks dat d'seze [yellow fever] don't hanker much after niggers, kase he don't offen win de fite tell he gits a feller turned yaller, an’ niggers don't turn yellow wuff er cent; but whenebber he gits er whiteman lyin' out lookin like er chromo of er mustard patch in bloom, dere's gwine ter be er hole in de seme terry groun' nex' day, sho!
“Old Si,” Atlanta Constitution (1878)Unlike malaria, yellow fever has failed to stimulate genetic research, even though historically the black has revealed an incredible agility in sidestepping that plague's lethal scythe, a scythe which invariably chopped a wide swath through whites.
The disease is caused by a virus, injected into man by another kind of mosquito, the female Aëdes aegypti. The victim's first signal that all is not well is a general ill feeling; his features flush, he develops chills, then a high fever and quite possibly a severe head- and backache add to his distress. (Note that the symptoms to this point are sufficiently similar to a malarial attack to explain why the two were frequently confused.) Next the patient suffers through a restless, agitated two- or three-day period of high fevers and then characteristically experiences a remission. If he is fortunate, he has enjoyed (relatively speaking) a mild attack, and that is all there is to it.
If he is not fortunate, jaundice sets in a few hours later (hence “yellow” fever), the victim may hallucinate, internal hemorrhages occur, and he begins vomiting black blood (thus the Spanish appellation “vomito negro”) which “seems to gush forth without any effort from the patient.”
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- Information
- Another Dimension to the Black DiasporaDiet, Disease and Racism, pp. 29 - 49Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1981