The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [120]
For a description of Dr. Robert Wood Mitchell, I looked to the Simon Rulin Bruesch Collection. I based my descriptions of John Erskine on the Erskine file in the Memphis History Room of the Memphis Library, as well as Bruesch’s article.
The quote about privies and the general state of water in Memphis during that time period was taken from Sorrels’s book, held in the Mississippi Valley Collection at the University of Memphis.
“Memphis is about the healthiest city on the continent at present” was printed in the Memphis Appeal, June 22, 1878.
“Is it not better to expend a few thousand as a safeguard than lose millions . . . besides the thousands of valued lives that will have passed away” appeared in the Memphis Appeal, July 4, 1878.
The amount of money—$8,000—secured at the July 6 meeting of the Board of Health to clean up the city was reported in the Memphis Appeal, July 6, 1878.
“Should an epidemic reach Memphis . . . those who opposed the establishment of a quarantine will be held responsible” was printed in the Memphis Appeal, July 11, 1878.
Mitchell’s letter of resignation from the Memphis Board of Health appeared in the Appeal, July 11, 1878.
“The yellow fever scare is about over in Memphis” was printed in the Memphis Appeal, July 30, 1878.
The details of Dr. John Erskine boarding the John D. Porter for inspection appeared in the Memphis Appeal, July 30, 1878.
Information about the strange occurrences in July of 1878— the streetlights exploding, the Edison speaking phonograph, the rattlesnake, the cocktails and the eclipse—were all taken from the Memphis Appeal and Avalanche newspapers.
The description of the constellation Ophiuchus was based on information in Encyclopaedia Britannica. Imhotep, the man on whom the constellation is based, was called by Sir William Osler “the first figure of a physician to stand out clearly from the mists of antiquity.” It is said that the medical sign of two serpents coiled around a staff is based on Imhotep.
The timeline of the first yellow fever cases and the description of the mass exodus out of Memphis were taken from Keating’s book. Additional information about William Warren was found in 1878 copies of the newspapers. Descriptions of the Pinch District were taken from files by the same name held in the Mississippi Valley Collection of the University of Memphis and the Memphis Historical Collection at the Library of Memphis. And specifics about Bionda’s snack house in the Pinch were found in Thomas Baker’s article “The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 in Memphis, Tennessee” in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 1968.
The New York Times editorial about New York’s filthy tenement houses appeared in John Ellis’s Yellow Fever and Public Health in the New South.
The quote about the tales circulated by sensationalists was from the Appeal, August 4, 1878.
The estimated number of people left in Memphis during the epidemic and the number stricken is based on Keating’s book. According to Keating, 19,600 remained, and 17,600 had yellow fever. According to Baker’s article, 25,000 people had fled the city— over half of the population—in the four days after Bionda’s death. “For the sake of humanity, men became inhuman” was taken from Keating’s book.
The story of the Memphians released from the trains in Milan for provisions appeared in an Evening Appeal clipping found in the Yellow Fever Collection at the Memphis Library.
The description of the Citizen’s Relief Committee and their actions was based on Bloom’s book, reports in the local newspapers and the Charles G. Fisher Papers at the University of Memphis. Information about the Howard