"Y" is for Yellow Fever. For more than 200 years yellow fever was one of the most dreaded diseases in South Carolina. It was introduced into the colony as a result of the African slave trade and the first major epidemic struck in 1699. Charleston hosted numerous epidemics and the victims were mainly whites not native to the lowcountry—hence another name for the disease-- “strangers' fever.”
The disease is caused by a flavivirus and transmitted by mosquitoes. One of its symptoms is jaundice caused by the virus's attacks on the liver. Other symptoms include high fever, vomiting, exhaustion, convulsions, delirium, bleeding from body orifices, and severe body aches. The disease generally runs its course in ten days. Victims often die of kidney failure, but patients who survive yellow fever are henceforth immune to the disease.
