1845

Yellow fever  epidemic on Boa Vista, one of the  Verde islands off coast of W. Africa, then governed by Portuguese.   James McWilliam’s report of 1846 blamed epidemic on British ship Éclair for bringing the “remittent fever” to the island, which worsened (e.g., the “black vomit”) among British sailors and island residents after ship’s arrival. Military physician James McWilliam’s report of 1846, based on over 100 carefully and neutrally conducted interviews among all island residents –  washerwomen, military guards, townspeople of all races, free and  enslaved – “reveals how slavery and imperialism advance epidemiological practices” and “helped to solidify the interview as a fundamental method in epidemiological analysis” (J. Downs, 53, 62-63, 67, 74).  The report also incorporated observations on the geography, geology, climate, and anthropology of the locations visited along with statistic on the men who became ill and died”  (54).  Re racial difference, “he was more concerned with the influence of climate and environment, not physiology, of the African people” (55). McWilliam was wrong about the transmission of yellow fever (viz, by fleas not person to person), but his interview methodology became “a fundamental practice in both public health and epidemiology” (65).