The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [41]
To Finlay, the insect theory would also explain why yellow fever epidemics were so sporadic, striking different cities during different years, in spite of quarantines. Finlay was particularly interested in a common striped mosquito, known later as Aedes aegypti, which proliferated in areas where yellow fever was present. That particular mosquito had a few peculiar habits that would make it an ideal vector of disease. As soon as it had digested a blood meal, Aedes aegypti went in search of another, which would enable it to carry and spread disease easily. The mosquito is also benumbed when the temperature drops below sixty degrees, which correlated with Finlay’s atmospheric studies on areas where epidemics are common and at what times of year they begin and end in places like New Orleans and Memphis. For the first time, it seemed there was a connection between the pest and the pestilence.
It was with a bitter sense of irony that Memphians would one day learn the yellow fever epidemics that nearly destroyed their city, a city named for Memphis, Egypt, would be spread by Aedes aeygpti: the Egyptian mosquito.
In 1881, Finlay began studies on Aedes aegypti and blood inoculations. His experiments were partially successful, producing a few mild cases. He presented his theory on August 14, 1881, to the Royal Academy under the title The Mosquito Hypothetically Considered as the Agent of Transmission of Yellow Fever. To Finlay, the theory made perfect sense, in spite of some inconclusive experiments. But to a medical age wholly dedicated to the germ theory and the idea of contagion, his ideas seemed bizarre. His experiments had also been riddled with problems, leaving more questions than answers. Finlay stood at the lectern and stuttered his way through his presentation, trying to explain his strange theory through fits and starts in his voice. When he finished reading his paper, he looked up and awaited questions from the audience. Instead, he was met with complete silence. The combination of his speech impediment and outlandish theories about mosquitoes left him ridiculed and rejected by the medical community. He was dubbed “Mosquito Man” by the U.S. press and became known as a “crank” and a “crazy old man” in Havana.
Finlay continued to conduct experiments, including several on Jesuit priests at their monastery outside of Havana. The farm, located high on a plateau in a suburb of Havana, had been leased to the priests for summer residence. In spite of rampant yellow fever epidemics throughout Havana and elsewhere in Cuba, the property, known as Finca San Jose, had never had an epidemic. In coming years, those 150 acres would be a critical setting in the conquest of yellow fever. And for the next two decades, Finlay retreated into his own quiet obsession with mosquitoes.
CHAPTER 8
Reparations
In Memphis, a mild winter approached. Already, people began to speculate that the devastating 1878 epidemic would be followed by another one in 1879. The pattern is consistent with an El Niño cycle, and the loaded mosquitoes from one epidemic would lay virulent eggs that would survive to the next summer, when once again, a yellow fever epidemic would strike.
Another public meeting was called for New Year’s Eve, 1878. This time, a handful of prominent Memphians gathered to decide the fate of the dying city. For over a decade Memphis had been bled by corrupt politicians and overwhelming epidemics; it was now $5 million in debt. With a national reputation as one of the most diseased and devastated cities in the country, businesses would surely leave and new ones would not come. Worse, they argued, the flight of so many of Memphis’s wealthy whites had left the city with poor blacks