Centennial year of yellow fever eradication in New Orleans and the United States, 1905-2005

Abstract

This article briefly details the history of the 1905 yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans and the successful and permanent eradication of The Pestilence. First the authors will give some medical and historical background regarding Bronze Jack from its transmission from West Africa by the Spanish slave trade to the New World, through the Caribbean to New Orleans, the great port city which became the Necropolis of the South. We will then focus on the summer of 1905 when New Orleans experienced what proved to be the last epidemic in the history of New Orleans and the United States, and the methods employed to combat it. This year, 2005, marks the centennial of one of the truly remarkable and critical accomplishments of medicine and public health.