Dr. John H. Erskine - Yellow Fever Epidemic

John Henry Erskine, MD (1834-1878) “was a young man of large mold, physically perfect, very tall and very strong. His handsome face was lighted with a perpetual smile. Good nature, good heart and cheerful soul were convictions his manner carried to every beholder. He was a manly man.” So go the words of his eulogy after he died a martyr serving his patients during the catastrophic Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878 that destroyed Memphis. This biography chronicles his life from birth and early childhood in Huntsville, AL, to college at the University of Virginia and New York University School of Medicine where he received a MD degree at the age of 24 years; to military service in the Civil War where he rose from a young Assistant Surgeon to Medical Director of General Johnston’s Army of 100,000 men, having served gallantly on the front line at Shiloh and other major battles; and, to postbellum Memphis where he resumed his medical practice, was elected Health Officer for the city and worked to exhaustion and death in the Yellow Fever epidemic. The last chapter, “The Irony of it All”, carries a somber message to a civilized society.

WALTER T. HUGHES, JR, MD is a physician-scientist and Emeritus Chairman, Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. His career in academic medicine includes positions of Eudowood Professor and Director, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Captain, Walter Reed Army Research Unit, Ft. Detrick, MD; and Professorships at the U. of Louisville School of Medicine and U. of Tennessee College of Medicine. In addition to more than 500 scientific publications, his books include “The Yellow Martyrs” (2000), “The Last Leaf” (2003), “Ghosts of Misery Island” (2006), “Suffer the Little Children” (2011), and “From Wales to Pneumocystis and AIDS” (2015).