Arden, W: Rediscovering the Memphis Yellow Fever Epidemic of

Most investigations that examine diffusion of disease through urban areas give relatively scant attention to the ‘micro-environment.‘ Employing the many methods of macro-environmental analysis, most studies do not attempt to identify street-level or even residence-level temporal-spatial patterns of disease diffusion. As a result, the mechanisms that lead to diffusion on such small scales are left relatively undefined. This book investigates some of these unexplored areas by presenting a temporal-spatial analysis of the Memphis Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878. This analysis constructs a modern GIS database used to re- create and analyze the Urban Yellow Fever diffusion patterns seen in Memphis in 1878 by various statistical means. Hot spots and multi-death residences in particular were examined for interrelated patterns. Temporal-spatial cartographic representations of these areas show that social and cultural interactions probably play a greater role in urban yellow fever dissemination than previously thought.