You woke up a week ago feeling strange. You weren't sure what was wrong, but your body was full of pain, you felt hot to the touch, and you kept throwing up. Your mother told you to lie down and rest, hoping it was just a cold. After a few days, you began to feel better, well enough to want to return to the river to watch for the merchant ships to arrive. Now, unfortunately, your symptoms have returned with a vengeance: the fever has returned along with intense abdominal pain. pain, your mouth bleeds without being hurt and every time you vomit it appears black in color. Plus, when you look in the mirror, your skin has changed from the sun-kissed color you've always had to a dull yellow shade. The doctor comes to visit you; makes lots of "tsk tsk" noises and hurries out of the room with a cloth over her face. The doctor mutters to your mother that he believes you have Yellow Jack and there is nothing else he can do, you will die. Your mother cries uncontrollably but you can't react because another horrible pain in your head has doubled you over. Soon, when you stop shaking and start to relax, the sounds of the doctor and your mother become white noise and your surroundings start to get boring until you prove the doctor right; another person fell victim to the infectious yellow fever virus. There is no definitive history or date of discovery, but yellow fever is assumed to have originated in Africa and was brought to the Americas by Aedes a Egypti mosquitoes "hitchhiking" on merchant and slave ships. The first believed outbreak occurred in 1648 in Yucatán. It is "believed" because the initial documentation of illness and disease was not thoroughly investigated or described, they may have been caused by one thing or another. There is... half the document... The Organization summed it up best by stating that "yellow fever is still considered a public health emergency of international concern" (Yellow Fever WHO). Works Cited Castro, Ivan. 100 Hispanics You Should Know. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2007. Print.Cefrey, Holly. Yellow fever. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2002. Print.Dickerson, James L. Yellow Fever: A Deadly Disease Poised to Kill Again. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006. Print.Murphy, Jim. An American Plague: The Terrifying True Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. New York, NY: Clarion Books, 2003. Print.Shmaefsky, Brian R. Yellow Fever. New York, NY: Chelsea House, 2010. Print. "Yellow fever". www.cdc.gov. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d. Web. Nov. 28, 2011. “Yellow Fever.” www.who.int/en. World Health Organization, nd Web. 28 November. 2011.