Professor John Grabowski recently appeared on Ideastream to discuss a virus outbreak which occurred in Cleveland long before even the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The illness, which was often referred to as the “ague,” infecting many of Cleveland’s earliest settlers in the area we now call Whiskey Island. Professor Grabowski notes that the outbreak was due largely to where the settlers came to arrive in Cleveland; the mouth of the Cuyahoga River near Whiskey Island would have been much more stagnant than it is today, its swamp-like conditions offering a perfect breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Listen to the story or read the transcript here.