Third Thursday Talk - "Epidemics That Shaped New Orleans"

Derby Gisclair, a local historian who frequently speaks at the Jefferson Parish Library, will give a presentation titled “Epidemics That Shaped New Orleans,” at 7 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 18, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is free of charge and open to the public. Registration is not required.

Gisclair says that the city is still feeling the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic that took nearly 18,000 lives throughout the state. However, he says, during its 300-plus year history, there have been many diseases that have ravaged New Orleans, including the following which he will discuss.

Smallpox - Between 1863 and 1882, smallpox killed approximately 6,450 New Orleanians. Around a third of those with smallpox didn't survive. At its worst, the disease brought a pox-covered demise to about 1 in 11 people, for a total of hundreds of millions of victims throughout its deadly history. The virus caused a rash, starting in the mouth and quickly morphing into open sores and pus-filled bumps, or pox, all over the body. These pox left permanent, hideous scars.

Malaria - It killed as many as 1 in 556 people in the city during its peak, not surprising considering all the swamps and humidity in the area. Malaria is caused by one of several parasites of the Plasmodium family that are carried by mosquitoes. When the female Anopheles mosquito feeds on human blood, they transmit the parasite into the bloodstream, causing illness. The disease causes flu-like symptoms, from fever to fatigue. 

Yellow Fever - Another mosquito-borne disease, yellow fever is probably the most terrible, deadliest disease in New Orleans's history. Between 1796 and 1905, Louisiana was repeatedly ravaged by multiple yellow fever epidemics, taking more than 100,000 lives throughout the state and 40,000 within New Orleans. The New Orleans yellow fever epidemic of 1853 is considered the worst single disease epidemic to befall a major U.S. city. An estimated 11,000 people died that morbid summer, wiping around 10 percent of the total population of New Orleans. That year, Louisiana had the highest death toll of any state during all of the 19th century.

Cholera - Questionable sanitation levels of 19th-century New Orleans made cholera a major concern. Several major cholera outbreaks occurred here in the 1800s, including perhaps the worst, in 1832, when 3,000 New Orleanians died in two months. Later, in 1848-1849, the unpleasant disease claimed the lives of another 739 locals in 17 days, ultimately killing thousands in approximately three weeks.

A lifelong resident of New Orleans, S. Derby Gisclair is a member of the Society of American Baseball Research and its 19th Century, Minor Leagues, Deadball Era, Oral History, and Pictorial History Committees. He is active with the Schott-Pelican Chapter of SABR in Louisiana and is on the Nominating and Selection Committees for the Greater New Orleans Professional Baseball Hall of Fame. 

 He is the author of several books including Baseball in New Orleans (2004), Baseball at Tulane University (2007), The Olympic Club of New Orleans – The Epicenter of Professional Boxing, 1883 – 1896 (2018), Early Baseball in New Orleans – A History of 19th Century Play (2019), The Dixie Series – 1920 – 1958 (2023), and New Orleans Steamboat Stories – The Brief Lives of Mississippi Riverboats (2023).. 

 In 2024 he completed his seventh book, The 1910 New Orleans Pelicans – A Moment in Minor League History, the story of a young Joseph Jefferson Jackson, better known as Shoeless Joe Jackson, sent by Connie Mack to be groomed by Charles Frank of the New Orleans Pelicans. The book retraces the team's 1910 pennant run and the stories of the players. 

In addition to speaking at the Third Thursday Lecture Series at the East Bank Regional Library, Derby has several other projects in the pipeline and is in demand as a speaker on both sports history and New Orleans history.