106 RüdigerKunow
CubaandtheReedYellowFeverCommission
During the process of Cuban attempts to win independence from
Spain, observed with some sympathy in the United States, the local
Cuban disease ecology (with yellow fever, malaria and other infectious
diseasesbeingendemiconthisisland)playedasignificantroleandeven
attainedasortofgeopoliticalagency.Mybriefnarrativeherewillfocus
onyellowfever.^57 Whatthelocalscalledthe"invincibleGenerals,June,
July,andAugust,"i.e.,themonthswiththehighestprevalenceofyellow
fever (qtd. in Espinosa 1), severely impeded the Spanish colonizers'
efforts to quell the insurgence. Many soldiers were infected and had to
besentbacktoSpainfortreatmentiftheydidnotdierightaway.Inthe
aftermath of the U.S.-American invasion of the island in 1898, Spanish
concerns about yellow fever quickly became American concerns and
Cuba a new biomedical hot spot. More than 2,500 soldiers died in the
first months after the invasion, not from military engagements with the
Spaniards but rather because they had been contracting the fever.
Humanlosses,asdisquietingastheywere,were,however,notthewhole
story. In the past, the recurrent outbreaks of yellow fever in American
cities had been frequently traced back to Cuba (Espinosa 3; M. Crosby
113),whentheislandwasblamednotonlyforlossesoflifebutalsofor
massive financial losses. The 1878 epidemic just mentioned had
disrupted not only the local economy of the Mississippi valley, but that
of the Old South when the cotton market collapsed, bringing losses to
the U.S. economy of more than $ 200 million. Responding to urgent
demands from the U.S.-American business community to put an end to
allthat,thenew U.S.administrationontheislandmountedlargeefforts
to bring the local disease ecology under its control. These efforts were
heralded rhetorically as an American "clean up" of the island (Kunow,
"Sickness" 267), pretty much along the same lines as later on in the
Philippines(seebelow).
Congressman Townsend Scudder (D-New York) put the issue in a
nutshell:
(^57) This narrative is indebted especially to Mariola Espinosa's excellent
monograph.