108 RüdigerKunow
As early as 1888, long before the Commission had begun its work,
Cuban bacteriologist Carlos Finlay had suggested that yellow fever was
a vector-born disease, and had also identified a mosquito (Aedes
aegypti) as the vector responsible for its transmission (see M. Crosby
99-103; Espinosa 92-94). However, from an U.S.-American point of
view, it was regarded as highly improbable that someone from a
"backward" country like Cuba should have provided a solution for such
anintractablemedicalriddleasyellowfeverhadlongbeen.^59 Hence,the
Commission started its inquiry "from scratch" or so it seemed,^60 and
even though in the end Walter Reed would acknowledge Finlay's
trailblazing role, the discovery of the etiology of yellow fever came
henceforth to be seen as a U.S.-American discovery, certainly in the
UnitedStatesbutalsoinmanyannalsofmedicalhistory.
Aside from thetriumphalism (notshared by Reed personally) which
wasprobablytheinevitableby-productofmedicalandotherdiscoveries
in an age of imperialism, there was a strong, sometimes overlooked,
colonialist subtext in this medical story. This one, however, does not
derive from Cuba being for a time a U.S.-American colony of sorts but
ratherfromthewaythatcoloniala-symmetriesofpowerandknowledge
and knowledge production were playing themselves out in this case of
"sanitation from above" (Cuero).^61 Controlling the spread of such a
dangerous disease as yellow fever had long been for the Americas
constituted a momentous medical progress, one that was welcome not
only medically but also ideologically. That EuroAmerican colonialism
was indeed a harbinger of Progress (writ large) of any kind had long
been a cornerstone in the edifice of legitimation of EuroAmerican
(^59) AsimilarattitudeseemstohavebeenpresentinthecontextoftheHIV-AIDS
crisis, when parts of the U.S.-American medical establishment were convinced
thatthe HI-virus had been endemic in Haiti butoverlooked by the local doctors
(Markel,Germs161).
(^60) Who knew what about the etiology of yellow fever is a case for medical
history; for cultural critique, the issue is how knowledge about the disease was
insertedintothepublicdomain.Formoredetails,especiallyintheU.S.context,
cf. Ellis, John H.YellowFeverandPublicHealthintheNewSouth.Lexington:
UPofKentucky,1992.Print.
(^61) Markel and Cuero offer evidence of other cases of biomedical intervention,
forexampleinPeruandBrazil.