A Plumfield Kids Book Review by Greta, age 14

“During that time [In the Cuban town of Havana] there were many years when thousands of victims had died of the disease; in luckier years the figure still ran into the hundreds. The Gorgas squads started work in March, 1901. In April, May and June, there were no deaths from yellow fever. There was one in July, there were two in August and two in September. During the following nine months there were none.”

The war against the Yellow Fever took over thirty years. Led by Major Walter Reed, a doctor in the Army Medical Corps, a team of highly skilled doctors set out to stop Yellow Fever’s rampage against humanity. Though many would not survive to see their work come to fruition, they saved thousands if not millions of lives. From Dr. Carlos J. Finlay’s theory that the disease was spread by mosquitoes, to Major Walter Reed’s and Dr. Jesse Lazear’s attempts to prove the theory, to Dr. William Gorgas’s Mosquito Brigade, they all fought valiantly to stop this terrible disease.   

I wish to be a nurse, and so naturally I find books about nursing and medical discoveries to be fascinating. I have been reading my way through the Landmark books and saw this one and had to read it. I found Ralph Nading Hill’s writing to be interesting and engaging, while still being right to the point. He also wrote Robert Fulton and the Steam Boat for the Landmark Books, when I saw that, I knew I had to read it as well, and, at the time of writing this, I am loving it. 

If you want to find out more about the Landmark Books click here.