Summary.
Yellow fever and cholera, along with measles, the plague and other communicable diseases, had their way with city populations before the twentieth century and the discovery of a scientific approach to healthcare and disease prevention and control.
- The worldwide cholera pandemic of 1863-1866 [during the Civil War] began in 1863 in India.
- The table below shows the years when yellow fever and cholera death exceeded 3,000 by city.
- While annual related deaths in Memphis did not exceed 3,000 except in 1878, Memphis experienced thousands of deaths in a series of yellow fever epidemics: 1828, 150 deaths; 1855, 220 deaths; 1867, 550 deaths; 1873, 2,000 deaths; 1878, 5,000+ deaths and 1879, 600 deaths.
- New York City experienced a series of yellow fever epidemics and deaths: 1668, 1690, 1702 [500 deaths equaling 10% of total population], 1743, 1745, 1798 [ 1,524 deaths equaling 4% of total city population]; 1803, 606 deaths; 1805, 262 deaths.
- The World Health Organization estimates that yellow fever still causes 30,000 deaths annually worldwide.