MSW Book Recommendation #40 : ...from the yellow fever and malaria (histories)

”I looked, and there was a white horse! Its rider had a bow; a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer. […] And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another; and he was given a great sword. […] I looked, and there was a black horse! Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand, [...] I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him; they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and pestilence, and by the wild animals of the earth.” ; Revelations , 6: 2-7 - The Holy Bible (...transl./source is from internet version for the Bible, though.I mention this 'cause the transl. often might (but slight) differ, check fx from your own, just in case...)

”a-noph-e-les ([pronounciation]), n., pl. -les. any mosquito of the genus Anopheles, certain species of which are vectors of the parasite causing malaria in man. [ - NL – Gk anôphelês useless, hurtful, harmful, equiv. to an- AN- + ôphelê(ein) (to) help + -ês adj. suffix]” ; Webster's (Unabridged Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, 1994 ed.)

”In the 1770s, the geopolitical significance of differential immunity in the Atlantic American world shifted. Formerly, it had helped stabilize the distribution of territory among the various imperial powers, especially protecting the Spain's empire in the Americas. It continued to do so, as the example of Fort San Juan in Nicaragua showed. But now, by 1770s it also helped insurgents in other quests to change the imperial order. Political dynamics evolved in such a way that many people born and raised in the Americas sought to upset the status quo. […] A generation later, slaves in St. Domingue and Creole elites in South America also chose revolution. So did Cubans at the end of the nineteenth century. Historians for generations have brilliantly illuminated this age of revolution. One thing that has escaped their spotlight is the role of mosquitoes in making the revolutionaries victorious.” ; (McNeill, p. 193)

Mosquito Empires. Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914.  
by J.R. McNeill
(371 p. ; Cambridge Univ. Press, ...2000s)  /

(...And, an accompanying read):

The Making of a Tropical Disease. A short History of Malaria. 
by Randall M. Packard.
(John Hopkins Univ. Press., 2007)

[Recommendation(s) III / 2014] 

...I may be mistaken, but (acc. my parish Sunday School education) I thought one from the riders, on that apocalypse/revelation myth, was named after the drought. Or, that maybe specifically was just some among those many 'prophesied' catastrophic events (such as earthquakes, fx). Anyway, the revelations chapter - quoted on above – is quite open to various interpretation (...Appears it, though, often said/noted that one never should start the reading of Bible from that part...) ; But, I only follow my instincts and soforth, happens it so that my own recall about the riders was on the following manner: War, Drought (/flood, ...notice the duality of this – At many places the flood also plays the role for return of fertility, in form of long-awaited rains, etc.), Disease(s) and the Grasshoppers (/Famine). ...And, if I now look that very carefully, seems to me the first verse actually referring for 'the Zizaine' (...to use the Coscinny/Uderzo-terminology, I guess the word from that on english would be smtgh like the Quarrel-maker, or whatever is the correct term...)

...Anyway, we'll devote a suitable chapter for each (of the riders) at following chapters. (Except from the drought, I suppose us not adequote familiar with the mentioned conditions. I guess, that particular post or text should therefore concern the global warming.)

; (Our) main recommendation at this (McNeill), perhaps was selected partly due from my youthful interest on the war history et sim. I used to read all kinds of that stuff, albeit I was not very devoted, or at least not too enthusiastic from. ...As I nowadays think most military history as boring as the asphalt, the book selected not for any reprentative of that. But, it is quite renown history-book. Actually, the Mosquito Empires appears, acc. my judgement, a better sort of example from good (academic) history writing, occasionally even brilliant. Also there (probably) weren't been any particular studies of this, prior the book.

Personally I was mainly interested from the role of 'Yellow Jack' (the yellow fever) and its effect on humanity's fates during some past centuries. More generally, not-so-long-ago-in-the-pasts, the yellow fever often was seen for some mystical, deadly harvester lurking along w./byside the spreadage of human civilizations and the agricultural developments. Even while there's always been, and still are, some equally little understood, or sometimes more widespread diseases.  (Actually, us humans don't even still know so much from the microbes and viruses, while it appears we have a general belief for the modern sciences capacities of solving those problems.)

...Although the reader of the book might perhaps occasionally wonder, whether the emphasization on subject - these pestilences spread by certain mosquitoes - somewhat diminishes the role of some other things. (Like appears typical for most histories focused on some topic.). - I-O-W, I fx find not difficult to believe that Toussaint-L'Ouverture and/or Simon Bolivar (1788-1830) at their guerilla-fights against the imperial powers were well familiarized for the effects of that 'Yellow Jack', along w. malaria, to the European troops and took most benefit out of disease-seasons, tactically and intentionally. (Preceding meaning the revolutions of St.Domingo/modern day Haiti on 1790-1804, and S. American Venezuela, around early from 1800s.). Yet, from some other courses of events, the major role played by contagious insect(/mosquito)-spread diseases is, a bit more questionable an aspect, at least feels to me so. (The Cuban revolution at late from 1800s, and fx the US colonies revolting against Brits on the 1700s, ao.)

...But, I leave that for anyone to think about for themselves. Interested can make his/her own conclusions, and so I only quote a few paragraphs in the following, about aspects I did interest myself on and from. The first discusses the level of (great) mortality rates the epidemics from yellow fever in past were found causing (before effective vaccination to the disease was invented, from around 1920/-30s):

”Six well-documented yellow fever outbreaks, albeit minor ones, give credence to reports of high case mortality. In 1853, yellow fever attacked the British garrison on Bermuda: of 829 infected, 360 died (43 per cent). [...repr. var, other examples, from btw y. 1856-1995.] ...For comparison, in the days before effective prevention, case mortality rates for smallpox ranged about 20 to 50 percent, and for bubonic plague as much as 80 percent.

In addition, many of the historical date, especially those used in the book, come from populations including large proportions of military men or indentuded servants. In an ordinary epidemic, whether of yellow fever or anything else, many people avoided inflection by fleeing. For example, in the 1793 yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia some 20,000 Philadelphians, between a third and half of the city's population, left the city. But in the Caribbean, soldiers, sailors, and indenturd servants – and, of course, slaves – were not normally at liberty to flee in the face of epidemics, so fewer of them did so and more stood their ground and took their chances. They could not reduce their risk of exposure.” (;p. 37-8. ...B-t-w, an interesting p-o-w to mention, is that there's mentioned been epidemies (on Philadelphia) prior and after that famous year 1793 – while the said year appears most well-documented and the mosquito's relation to disease became later discovered part on its basis. But, it's said from some (minor) epidemies also fx on years 1797, -98, -99.)

; ...Also, an interesting 'parallel' view for these aspects I discovered while reading the Personal Narrative by great Alex von Humboldt (; Here fx on our book recom. no 36) . McNeill not refers on this at his book – actually it's only some told story, not any actual sources mentioned and from overally different aspects. Humboldt also only inpassing mentions this, but the quote refers to an aspect usual on many famous past disease histories as well: Often in the past the changing of locations for higher grounds was found as the only escape from falling victim of the infection. (...The quote also tells of the early era of that ecological devastation from the S.American hardwoods, as the mahogany and brazil-wood nowdays contain most declined tree-species. - Along w. several less-better known, or trees that've until more recently been less favored at the human industries/uses):

”Our host had visited the new world with an expedition which was to form establishments for felling wood for the Spanish navy on the shores of the gulf of Paria. In the forest of mahogany, cedar and brazil-wood, whick border the Caribbean Sea, it was proposed to select the trunks of the largest trees, giving them in a rough way the shape adopted to the building of ships, and sending them every year to the dockyard near Cadiz. White men, unaccustomed to the climate, could not support the fatigue of labour, the heat, and the effect of the noxious air [X] exhaled by the forests. The same winds which are loaded with perfume of flowers, leaves and woods, infuse also, as we may say, the germs of dissolution into the vital organs. Destructive fevers carried of not only the shipcarpenters, but the persons who had management of the establishment; and this bay, which the Spaniards named Golfo Triste (Melancholy Bay), on account of the gloomyand wild aspect of it's coasts, became the grave of European seamen. Our host [...] withdrew from the coast to the mountains of Cocollar.”[; from Humboldt's PN / X: ...prior the discovery of mosquitoes role at the spread of these diseases it was generally believed, for most from 1800s, 'the bad air' of swampy areas and wetlands as the main cause for (these) diseases. (Malaria as a word literally, or by origin, means 'bad air' or smtgh close for that). ...But, another aspect worth mention that through 1800s - at least until the emergence of chemistry and modern microbiology, ao - the previous belief about the disease causes was the so called miasma-theory. Acc. to that ('the main medical explanation ever since the Hippocrate') it was assumed the dead bodies, or other deceased matter, for main causes to sudden spread of epidemies. And, (also it was believed) for most vulnerable to those 'the degraded', or morally 'weak' – which actually generated some difficulties for explanators at the time, due that (ao) on the above referred Haitian revolt-example most of the victims were French elite-troops - whom should've been most resistent to disease(s) acc that belief. So, actually a specific research on yellow fever was carried afterwards by French just because of their disaster on both military and political fronts.(...to the contrary, freedom and at least partial - meant by that (somewhat) limited, or perhaps of the future prospects still uncertain, but some self-gained -  independency for the revolters... -...in time these events were to have a lot (political) influence and worldly consequence ) ]

; ...Finally, there's this quote about the diseases emergence(s) for epidemics/disease outbreaks and the mosquitos, and it's relation for the human agricultural development from since the late 16^th centurys (McNeill devotes several more chapters for this, of course):

”The ecological changes wrought by the plantation economy in the greater Caribbean after the mid-seventeenth century created creole ecologies that improved prospects for searing epidemics of both yellow fever and malaria, but especially yellow fever because it's linkswitch with sugar economy. The sugar plantation economy had three main pillars: the slave trade made as a source of labor, the plantation as a unit of production, the port city as the organizer of exports. All three combined to improve conditions for the vector of yellow fever [ie Aedes Aegypti, a mosquite-spec.] ...Sugar's demographic and ecological revolutions assisted in the establishment of malaria as well, but here they were less crucial. Anopheline mosquitoes already existed in the Caribbean before Columbus. The plasmodia probably arrived soon after 1492. Sugar's changes led to more deforestation, erosion, silting and swamps, of some help in the anopheline breeding. More important, sugar brought more people and indirectly, more livestock, on which the anophelines might feed. Rice cultivation proved much more supportive for anophelines, but outside South Carolina and Surinam its extent remained modest.”(;p. 61-2 / ...The emergence of the sugar-cane 'industry'in the past is often noted having had a major influence at the spread of malaria. And, of course there's lots more interesting said from the causes of past epidemics, fx about the varying role of domestic animals keeping and maintenance. That sometimes having served as an effective preventation, but also vice versa.)

; ...Then, we also have this accomp. book (Packard) at this recommendation. I have even briefer words from that, but that so just because I suppose the malaria-research must appear quite rapidly advanced field of science, by nowadays. ...So, I've not very precise idea from how that's currently, fx there might by now have been developed some effective vaccination against at least some strains of malaria (The malaria exists on several separate forms of Plasmodia, carried by several various mosquitoes – which always has also made it more difficult a disease to eradicate, if compared for the yellow fever, fx.) But, anyhow, the book draws a good picture from the malaria's historic past and of the combat against it, 'the burden of humanity' - like the malaria-disease often is been described.

And, (perhaps) most importantly reader also learns that, as a strongly socially-relating disease, malaria's return during late 1900s to various parts of warmer tropics had strong-connections w. the inadequote developmental help and poor health care-systems. And, that the eradication programs were at the time left half-away; The disease once been succesfully, almost completely, eradicated of most regions of warmer temperate zone where it was priorly extant, but not nearly so effectively of the many tropical regions (Where it, also due the warmer climate, always has remained by somehat more difficult eradicate, though.  But, in then past it wasn't quite that way, for during some former centuries malaria also used to exist as lot more common disease on Northern temperate zones, too – I recently fx noticed that actually Finland was still until the late from 1800s, a far northest coutnry in the world where there has existed recurrent malaria-epidemics (...Albeit on a quite limited sense, and mainly due because the housing-conditions at the time permitted the malaria-carrying vectors from remaining active even during the cold season.) 
 

...There are of course various other good books one could view from malaria. (On his book 1493, Charles Mann fx, seems rely, along w. Packard, to a malaria-history by Webb, p. 2009). And probably, also more specifically mosquito-related researches and books there are. But, to put it brief, Packard also every manner recommendable reading for an interested. Could've had selected it as the main recom here, but, like said I merely was interested on the yellow fever, it's past influence and socio-cultural histories. 

(In case it wasn't mentioned earlier on this, quite obviously the rider on this post was The pestilence.)

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- (Pic) ; Sweet Mock-orange (Philadelphus coronaria) ...I don't guarantee the specific species-name of the flower (...most genera from here are actually local bred species as they tend suffer severely of the frosts at coldest winters.)  ...felt somehow proper here as on above text there was some references for that famous Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic.)

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- (Pic) ; 'The Bad Vixen of Babylon, The evil hexen from the Bibschenburg'. (...I recently read, of the movie catalog, that this Fritz Lang's classic already contains all the elements later scifi films have since used. It's a great movie, also concerning the general mood and spirit from it's era.)

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