Yellow feverYellow fever is a devastating viral disease that can cause bleeding from the eyes, nostrils, anus and other mucous membranes. This terrible illness often also causes black-colored, blood-filled vomit, and the deterioration of the liver, kidneys, and heart. Yellow bile pigments from the damaged liver color the skin, giving the disease its name. Those who do not survive usually die between four and eight days after they first show symptoms. There is still no known cure for the disease. Before 1898, yellow fever had always been a puzzle, because it strikes many people at once as an epidemic, yet it isn’t directly contagious from one person to another. Sadly, yellow fever epidemics have been common throughout history.Although many researchers had been trying to solve the mystery of the yellow fever epidemic throughout the nineteenth century, it was the short Spanish-American War of 1898 that provided the pressure which resulted in a solution. The United States had gone to war with Spain to support rebels in Cuba and Puerto Rico who wanted to be free from violent and repressive Spanish control. The American public was particularly supportive of the rebels because of the "yellow journalism" of William Randolph Hearst, who published a series of exaggerated stories on Spanish atrocities. When the U.S.S. Maine was sunk in an Havana port, battle cries of "Remember the Maine" sent the U.S. into war against Spain. The U.S. defeated Spain in less than one year, because of its naval superiority. Early in the war, a severe yellow fever epidemic broke out among Cuban peasants and American soldiers stationed in Havana.For many years scientists had struggled with solving the problem of the puzzli...
