BU professor to discuss yellow fever
BU Professor Jeanette Keith will speak on “Mosquitoes, Environments and the Social Construction of Yellow Fever” Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m. in the BU’s Andruss Library, Schweiker Room. The lecture is free and open to the public.
The connections 19th century Americans made between the environment and yellow fever, and how those connections, although incorrect, contributed to progress in public health will be the focus of the next program in the Institute for Culture and Society Special Focus Lecture Series at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.
BU Professor Jeanette Keith will speak on “Mosquitoes, Environments and the Social Construction of Yellow Fever” Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m. in the BU’s Andruss Library, Schweiker Room. The lecture is free and open to the public.
In 1878, a major yellow fever epidemic swept through the Mississippi Valley, killing more than 18,000 people. It is now known that yellow fever is spread by a variety of mosquito with very specific environmental needs; in 1878, that discovery had not yet been made. Historically, when the origins of a disease are unknown, humans construct socially useful stories to explain who gets sick and who dies.
For more information, contact David S. Heineman, assistant professor of communications, at (570) 389-4188 or dheinema@bloomu.edu.
