MEDICINE

Viewpoint: Yes, prior to the twentieth century, most physicians thought that yellow fever epidemics were the product of environmental factors, including locally generated miasmas.

Viewpoint: No, yellow fever epidemics were not the product of locally generated miasmas; evidence eventually proved that yellow fever is spread by the mosquito Aedes aegypti.

The origin of yellow fever is almost as mysterious and controversial as that of syphilis and concerns the same problem of Old World versus New World distribution of disease in pre-Columbian times. Until the twentieth century, the cause and means of transmission of the disease were also the subjects of intense debate. Some historians believed that the Mayan civilization was destroyed by yellow fever and that epidemics of this disease occurred in Vera Cruz and...