DISEASE MAPPING AND EARLY THEORIES OF YELLOW FEVER

For more than two hundred years yellow fever epidemics periodically raged in some of the largest cities of the United States. Physicians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were ignorant of the source, mode of tranmission, and method of cure. Debate centered upon the issues of foreign vs. local origin, and the contagious vs. noncontagious nature of the disease. Several disease maps were produced in attempts to support these theories. The maps purported to demonstrate the relationship between miasma and yellow fever. Three early maps that were used for deriving and supporting theories of local origin and noncontagion are presented here.