Great Fever, The 1x57

For over two hundred years, yellow fever killed an estimated 100,000 people. In June 1900, the U.S. Army led a medical team to Cuba on a mission to investigate the disease and began testing the radical theories of Cuban doctor, Carlos Finlay, who believed that mosquitoes spread yellow fever. This AMERICAN EXPERIENCE documents the heroic efforts of Walter Reed’s medical team, whose discovery enabled the U.S. to eradicate the disease among workers constructing the Panama Canal, making possible the completion of one of the most strategic waterways in the world. When it struck New Orleans in 1905, an aggressive mosquito eradication campaign ended the epidemic and became the first major public health triumph of the 20th century.

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