My great grandfather, Dr. Benjamin F. Cross, was one of the doctors who battled yellow fever in Decatur, AL, in 1878 and 1888. Dr. Cross was the Morgan County Health Officer who reported the second epidemic (1888) to Dr. Jerome Cochran, Alabama's first public health officer. Part of Decatur's citizens did not want to report the fever as "yellow jack"; the other part did. The decision to report the second epidemic split the town's citizens who rightly believed that a report of yellow jack would doom a growing Decatur who was recovering from the first epidemic. By 1880, Decatur's population had dropped to 300 people.These citizens wanted A.D. Spencer's (a fruit dealer) death reported as "black vomit", not yellow jack. Spencer was the first casualty of the second epidemic. It is believed that Spencer caught the yellow jack from a visitor from Jacksonville, FL ( who also experienced epidemics). The argument that raged among the citizenry reached US Congress who decreed that Decatur be burned to the ground. Only pleas from Dr.Cochran kept the city from being put to the torch. You can read all about the hue and cry that split the town from articles found in Morgan County's Genealogical Society, 624 Bank St.,NE, Decatur, AL 35601. The names of doctors who died in the 1888 epidemic are found in the Decatur City Cemetery Records. Other articles on the epidemics in Decatur were published in The Valley Journal, Sept. 30,1990; The Decatur Daily, February 24, 1955;The Decatur Sunday Dispatch, Nov. 25, 1888; The Decatur News, 1888; The Report of the Board of Health of the State of Alabama, 1888. Ms Ivydene (Dene) Simpson Walls researched the epidemics and wrote a wonderful article for the Decatur newspaper. In 1991, a monument was dedicated to the yellow fever victims in Decatur and the physicians who treated them in the Decatur City cemetery. A picture of the monument is found in The Decatur Daily, July 8, 1991. My great grandfather Cross survived both epidemics and died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1895, a few years short of the world discovering that mosquitoes were the vectors in the spread of yellow fever. My mother (90 yrs) remembers hearing from her father, a Decaturite, that so many people died that they gave out of coffins. One article I have reports that 92 died out of 320 reported cases. I hope this helps those of you interested in the Morgan epidemics and especially that concentrated around Decatur. Troy W. Rogers tigerrag@gte.net . .