The American Plague
The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History
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Narrated by:
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Paul Woodson
About this listen
Over the course of history, yellow fever has paralyzed governments, halted commerce, quarantined cities, moved the U.S. capital, and altered the outcome of wars. During a single summer in Memphis alone, it cost more lives than the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, and the Johnstown flood combined.
In 1900, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba to discover how yellow fever was spread. There, they launched one of history's most controversial human studies. Compelling and terrifying, The American Plague depicts the story of yellow fever and its reign in this country - and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year. With "arresting tales of heroism," it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.
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Heroines of Mercy Street tells the true stories of the nurses at Mansion House, the Alexandria, Virginia, mansion turned wartime hospital and setting for the new PBS drama Mercy Street. Among the Union soldiers, doctors, wounded men from both sides, freed slaves, politicians, speculators, and spies who passed through the hospital in the crossroads of the Civil War were nurses who gave their time freely and willingly to save lives and aid the wounded.
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More of a history lesson.....
- By Wendy on 04-17-16
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The Fever
- Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
- By: Sonia Shah
- Narrated by: Maha Chehlaoui
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their names - and opened their pocketbooks - in hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren’t we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?
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Solid but not amazing account of malaria
- By S. Yates on 04-11-16
By: Sonia Shah
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The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl
- How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis
- By: Arthur Allen
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed - refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples - causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl.
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An Unforgettable book
- By Jean on 09-01-14
By: Arthur Allen
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The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
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Not one boring moment!
- By WRF on 12-22-17
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Bellevue
- Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital
- By: David Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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David Oshinsky, whose last book, Polio: An American Story, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 12-14-16
By: David Oshinsky
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The Demon Under The Microscope
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
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Great Book!!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
By: Thomas Hager
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Black Death at the Golden Gate
- The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague
- By: David K. Randall
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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For Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King, surviving in San Francisco meant a life in the shadows. His passing on March 6, 1900, would have been unremarkable if a city health officer hadn't noticed a swollen black lymph node on his groin - a sign of bubonic plague. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown while doctors examined Wong's tissue for telltale bacteria. If the devastating disease was not contained, San Francisco would become the American epicenter of an outbreak that had already claimed 10 million lives worldwide.
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Plague, Racism, Public Health..a toxic mix.
- By Steve Adams on 07-11-19
By: David K. Randall
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Reanimators
- By: Pete Rawlik
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Two men, a bitter rivalry, and a quarter-century of unspeakable horrors. Herbert West’s crimes against nature are well-known to those familiar with the darkest secrets of science and resurrection. Obsessed with finding a cure for mankind’s oldest malady, death itself, he has experimented upon the living and dead, leaving behind a trail of monsters, mayhem, and madness. But the story of his greatest rival has never been told until now.
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A wonderful romp through Lovecraft country
- By Elise Givhan Spainhour on 09-02-13
By: Pete Rawlik
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The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World's Deadliest Influenza Outbreak
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 1 hr and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1918, the world was still in the throes of the Great War, the deadliest conflict in human history at that point, but while World War I would be a catastrophic war surpassed only by World War II, an unprecedented influenza outbreak that same year inflicted casualties that would make both wars pale in comparison.
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Complacency can kill
- By MolllyT on 12-10-16
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Beating Back the Devil
- By: Maryn McKenna
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The universal instinct is to run from an outbreak of disease. These doctors run toward it. They always keep a bag packed. They seldom have more than 24 hours before they are dispatched. They are told only their country of destination and the epidemic they will tackle when they get there.
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Interesting Stuff - Only criticism is pacing
- By Tim on 07-23-05
By: Maryn McKenna
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Pale Rider
- The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
- By: Laura Spinney
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted - and often permanently altered - global politics, race relations, and family structures while spurring innovation in medicine, religion, and the arts.
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A Predilection for Those in the Prime of Life
- By Cynthia on 02-12-18
By: Laura Spinney
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During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out. Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city frantic with disease.
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Good book, unbearable narration
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The Great Mortality
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The plague that devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century has been of never-ending interest to both scholars and the general public. Many books on the plague rely on statistics to tell the story. In The Great Mortality, author John Kelly lends an air of immediacy and intimacy to his telling of the journey of the plague as it traveled from the steppes of Russia, across Europe, and into England, killing 75 million people—one third of the known population—before it vanished.
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What listeners say about The American Plague
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sylvia
- 07-08-20
Detailed history narrated quite well
I was naturally intrigued by this book given my experience with mosquito-borne and other infectious diseases. Loved the simplicity in writing and the clarity of its narration. Well done!
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- Josh
- 08-15-23
Engaging Historical Non-Fiction
I really enjoyed this audiobook and the author's writing. Like most audiobooks, once I was used to the narration, it was great. I am familiar with the city of Memphis. Learning how impactful yellow fever was to its development has brought the present day into a new perspective. The court square fountain had champagne in it! I'm nostalgic for a time and place that I didn't know.
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- Lisa Gray
- 03-25-23
Excellent Book
This book was extremely well written and her research was thorough and in-depth. I also enjoyed how it was written more as story rather than a clinical treatise.
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- Mary
- 08-12-20
Loaded with info and well presented
I have not heard the story of "Yellow Fever" before. It was good to learn new data and it's history..
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- Morgan German
- 02-27-23
Story was great but narrator was not.
The story was interesting and engaging, I knew little about yellow fever before reading this book. The only downside was the narrators constant inhalations. They take away from the book. This would have been 5 stars if the narrator learned to breathe through his nose.
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- UnreliableHeart
- 10-12-24
Well organized and engaging
Understanding disease requires cultural, social, political, and economic context as well as the history of the efforts to name it, find it, and understand it. This is a detailed and nuanced discussion and analysis of the history of yellow fever here on the United States. It hits all the marks.
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- T. Covey
- 02-12-23
Outstanding
With thorough scholarship and a captivating narrative the author hits all the points required of this history.
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- Abby
- 08-27-23
Really fascinating chapter of history
Coming back to listen again after covid, I’m struck again by the descriptions and repetitions of this era. This book is as compelling as a good true crime mystery, but as informative as a WHO briefing. It’s a great listen. The narrator really seems involved in the story as well. Sometimes you can tell a disinterested narrator, not so with this one.
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- EllenEllisDesigns
- 06-08-24
Very informative
I learned so much about Memphis history that I did not know. Fascinating true story.
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- Kevin P Key
- 04-13-20
Yellow Fever in Memphis
Yellow fever ravaged Memphis, peaking in 1878. The city went from a population of 47,000 to 19k in months. This book covers its origins in Africa, describes daily living, medical care, churches, and the deaths and burials of the victims.
The epidemic sparked a virologist coordinated lead team which tackled the disease. Walter Reed was a leader during the research. My great 3x grandparents and 6 other relatives died in the epidemic and are buried together in a family plot.
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2 people found this helpful