Yellow Fever

Yellow Fever Collection Highlighted

The Aristides Agramonte Yellow Fever Collection was featured on the blog of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine/South Central Region and in the LOUIS: Louisiana Library Network newsletter (p.5-6). Great press for an important collection!

Agramonte Yellow Fever Collection

Remember the grant that the Libraries received last summer? The Aristides Agramonte Yellow Fever Collection is now available via the Louisiana Digital Library. This collection provides access over 130 full text historic books and journal articles dating from the 1790s to about 1930; the titles revolve around the epidemiology and pathology of yellow fever.

James Carroll & Yellow Fever

110 years ago today, Major James Carroll, a US Army Physician, “allowed an infected mosquito to feed on him in an attempt to isolate the means of transmission of yellow fever. Carroll developed a severe case of yellow fever, helping his colleague, Army pathologist Walter Reed, prove that mosquitoes transmit this often-deadly disease (from the Library of Congress).” James Carroll is one of the Yellow Fever Commission physicians featured on the Enrique Alferez frieze in the LSUHSC Library Commons. The featured men are Walter Reed, Aristides Agramonte (for whom the Library was originally named), Jesse Lazear, and James Carroll.

Conquest of Yellow Fever frieze by Enrique Alferez

Award Recipients

The Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Library was chosen as a recipient for the Historical Preservation and Digitization Award. This $25,000 grant is awarded by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine South Central Region.

The title of the project is ÔÇ£Digitization of the Aristides Agramonte Collection on Yellow FeverÔÇØ and will be led by the Principle Investigators, Deborah Sibley and Molly Knapp.

The goal of the project is to digitize 149 rare books and journals identified as the first materials acquired for the LSU medical school library. The books belonged to Dr. Aristides Agramonte, a prominent pathologist and a proposed department chair at LSU before the School of Medicine opened; he passed away before he could begin his position. His collection includes a large number of early publications on yellow fever. Dr. Agromonte is a central figure in the historical Enrique Alferez frieze entitled ÔÇ£The Conquest of Yellow Fever.ÔÇØ This sculpture now hangs in the Library Commons.