Yellow Fever

Summertime is an excellent time to catch up on my reading. I would say that I am an above average reader. I enjoy books, and having a kindle has just made my reading life that much easier. I am a big non-fiction person. I tend to like to find off the beaten path non-fiction to read. Mark Kurlansky is one of my favorite non-fiction authors. Anyone who can write books about oysters, salt, and cod and make all of them some of the most interesting things I've ever read is amazing. I mean come on, COD!?! Seriously you don't know what you are missing. So currently on my reading list, and in my purse is a book called the American Plague by Molly Crosby. Currently I'm about half way through. I have to say, it is some riveting stuff. I had no idea how much of our country's medical history was shaped by the silent but extremely deadly disease know as Yellow Fever. The epidemic of 1878 in Memphis pretty much wiped the city out. It shaped the south. It also terrorized the US Army in Cuba during the early 1900s. Yellow fever also was one of the best studied diseases during the early 1900s in this country. It helped shape the medical research field we know today. If you can stomach the gory descriptions, and handle that when you go outside and see a mosquito you shouldn't freak out, then I would say this book is for you.