“The Sanitary City: Environmental Services in Urban America from Colonial Times to the Present” by Martin V. Melosi 

 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.