HISTORY: Yellow fever

S.C. Encyclopedia | Yellow fever was one of the most dreaded diseases in South Carolina during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Along with malaria, it helped establish the reputation of the South Carolina Lowcountry as a dangerously unhealthy place for whites and was used to justify African slavery. Like malaria, yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes and strikes in warm weather. Unlike malaria, which spread over most of the state, yellow fever was largely restricted to seaports by the habits of the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

by · 04/25/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia