My wife, the crazed genealogist, kept on asking me, the microbiologist and self-confessed infectious disease dilettante, about various causes of death she came upon during her research – most of them being common infectious diseases.  Even though many people have heard of things such as typhoid fever or yellow fever, for example, few actually know what agents cause them, how one contracts them, what it would have been your likely outcome before the advent of vaccines and/or antimicrobial drugs, etc.

Hence, I have created a series of short descriptions for anyone to read/use on a selected topics.  You can always go to Wikipedia, of course, but I have tried to be even more precise and brief in these short vignettes.

Use the pull down menu associated with the page tab entitled “What they died of..”.  this is an ongoing project starting with Yellow Fever.