yellow fever in buenos aires yellow fever in buenos aires the yellow fever in buenos aires was a series of epidemics that took place in 1852, 1858, 1870 and 1871, the latter being a disaster that killed about 8% of porteños: in a city where the daily death rate was less than 20, there were days that killed more than 500 people. the yellow fever would have come from asunción, paraguay, brought by argentine soldiers returning from the war just fought in that country, having previously spread in the city of corrientes. as its worst, buenos aires population was reduced to a third because of the exodus of those escaping the scourge. an episode of yellow fever in buenos aires (1871), oil on canvas by juan manuel blanes, national museum of visual arts. some of the main causes of the spread of this disease were the insufficient supply of drinking water, pollution of ground water by human waste, the warm and humid climate in summer, the overcrowding suffered by the black people and, since 1871, the overcrowding of the european immigrants who entered the country incessantly and without sanitary measures. also, the saladeros (manufacturing establishments for producing salted and dried meat) polluted the matanza river (south of the city limits), and the infected ditches full of debris which ran through the city encouraged the spread of the mosquito aedes aegypti, which was responsible of transmitting yellow fever. a witness to the epidemic of 1871, named mardoqueo navarro, wrote on april 13 the following description in his diary: businesses closed, streets deserted, a shortage of doctors, corpses without assistance, everyone flees if they can... outbreaks of yellow fever before 1871 since 1881, thanks to cuban physician carlos finlay, it was known that the transmitting agent of yellow fever was mosquito aedes aegypti. before that discovery, doctors attributed the cause of many epidemics to what they called "miasmas" floating in the air. yellow fever (or "black vomit", as it was called due to bleeding that occurs in the gastrointestinal) caused an epidemic in buenos aires in 1852. however, by a note addressed to practitioner soler is known that outbreaks occurred even before that year. as for the 1870 epidemic, it would come from brazil from merchant ship and caused 100 deaths. the great epidemic of 1871 background map of the city of buenos aires in 1870 at the end of 1870 there were large numbers of invalids registered in asunción, whose populace lived in deplorable poverty. the paraguayan war had just finished there and the argentinian intervention began in early 1871, causing the buenos aires epidemic by the arrival of the first argentinian veterans. also, in the city of corrientes, with a population of 11,000 and the centre of communication and provision for the allied troops between december 1870 and june of the following year, 2000 people died of yellow fever. most of the population fled. other towns in the corrientes province suffered the punishment of the disease, such as san luis del palmar, bella vista and san roque. in 1871 the national government convened in buenos aires, presided over by domingo faustino sarmiento, with buenos aires province represented by emilio castro, and narciso martínez de hoz presided over the municipal government. the city, situated in a plain, had no drainage system nor running water. hygiene was very precarious and there were many focuses of infection, such as the slums which lacked basic hygiene standards and were crammed with poor black or european immigrants, and the creeks, south of the city limits, which had become a sink for sewage and waste dumped by salting and slaughterhouses along their coasts. as it had no sewerage system, human waste collected in cesspools, which contaminated the ground water and hence the wells, one of the two major sources of the vital element for the majority of the populace. the other source was the río de la plata, from which they extracted water by carts, with no process of sanitisation. the filth and waste were used for levelling the terrain and streets in a city growing rapidly, mainly due to the influx of migrants. the streets were very narrow and there were no avenues (the first to be constructed was the avenida de mayo, which opened in 1894). there were few plazas and almost no vegetation. the first census of argentina in 1869 registered 177,787 inhabitants in the city of buenos aires, of which 88,126 were foreigners, and of those 44,233 were italian and 14,609 were spanish. in addition there were over 19,000 urban dwellings, of which 2300 were made of wood or clay and straw. in addition to the epidemic of yellow fever that we have mentioned, there were outbreaks of cholera in 1867 and 1868, which killed hundreds of people. the events the house where the first case was registered (caras y caretas 1899) on 27 january 1871, three cases of yellow fever were diagnosed in buenos aires. they were all in the san telmo neighbourhood, which is full of tenements. from this date on, many more cases were registered, mostly in that neighbourhood. the doctors tamini, salvador larrosa and montes de oca warned the city commission of the outbreak of an epidemic. but the commission, under the leadership of narciso martínez de hoz, disregarded their warnings and failed to publicise the cases. the controversy grew and was reported by the newspapers. meanwhile, the municipality intensified preparations for the official carnival festivities. at the end of february, the doctor eduardo wilde said there was an outbreak of the fever (with 10 cases registered on 22 february) and he left some apples, but the people were too entertained by the carnival festivities to listen to his warning. by the end of february at total of 300 cases had been registered, and march began with over 40 deaths a day, rising to 100 by day 6. all were caused by the fever. by now, the plague was hitting the aristocratic neighbourhoods too. dances were prohibited. a third of the inhabitants decided to abandon the city. on 4 march, the tribune newspaper commented that by night the streets were so dark "it truly appeared as if the terrible scourge had swept away all the residents". yet the worst by far was to come. the general men's hospital, the general women's hospital, the hospital italiano and the orphanage were all overwhelmed. so they created other emergency centres such as the lazareto de san roque (the hospital ramos mejía today) and others were rented privately. the port was quarantined and the provinces closed their borders to people or goods coming from buenos aires. the municipality was unable to endure the situation, so on 13 march, thanks to a newspaper campaign started by one evaristo carriego (although not evaristo carriego, the journalist and poet, as he was not born until 12 years later), thousands of neighbours congregated in the plaza de la victoria (plaza de mayo today) to design a people's commission of public health. on the following day, it was decided that the lawyer josé roque pérez should be its president, with the journalist héctor f. varela as his deputy. other members included the national vice president adolfo alsina, adolfo argerich, the poet carlos guido y spano, bartolomé mitre, the canon domingo césar and the irish-born priest patricio dillon who died in the epidemic and was named carriego, who affirmed that "even when so many are fleeing, that there are even some who stay in this place of danger to help those who cannot get regular assistance." among other things, the commission's function was to take charge of the streets and those who lived in places affected by the plague, and in some cases was sent to burn their belongings. the situation was more tragic when those evicted were humble immigrants unable to speak much spanish, and were therefore unable to understand why such measures were being taken. the italians, who were the majority of the foreigners, were in parts unjustly accused by the rest of the population of having brought the plague from europe. around 5,000 of them applied to the italian consul to return, but the quotas were very small, and many of those who embarked died offshore. as for the black population, they lived in miserable conditions which resulted in them being hit harder by the plague. also, it is said that the army surrounded the zones where they lived and did not permit any movement into barrio norte, where the whites were trying to escape the epidemic. they died in huge numbers and were buried in mass graves. by the middle of the month there were more than 150 deaths per day, rising to 200 by 20 march. among the dead were luis j. de la peña, teacher and former minister of justo josé de urquiza, the former deputy juan agustín garcía, the doctor ventura bosch, and the painter franklin rawson. others who died were the doctors francisco javier muñiz, carlos keen, adolfo argerich and, on 24 march, the aforementioned president of the people's commission josé roque pérez, who had written his will upon taking office because of the certainty of catching the plague and dying. the president sarmiento and his deputy, adolfo alsina, abandoned the city. as the national and provincial authorities fled the city, the secular and regular clergy remained in their posts and conformed to their evangelical mandate, to help the sick and dying in their homes, and the sisters of charity stopped their teaching in order to work in the hospitals instead, although this was hushed up by the anticlerical writers of the time. however the fact is highlighted by mardoqueo navarro in his diary, that it was as the sephardic mosaic cult had taught. of the 292 city priests, 22% died, compared to the 12 doctors, 2 practitioners, 4 members of the people's commission and 22 members of the council for public hygiene, as given by jorge ignacio garcía cuerva in his writing. the monument erected in 1873 to the victims of the yellow fever epidemic of 1871, in the centre of parque ameghino, in the neighbourhood of parque patricios, buenos aires (by manuel ferrari) there is only one plaque on the parque florentina ameghino monument which records the victims buried there, listing 21 with the title priest and 2 titled sister of charity. the order of sisters of charity added reinforcements from france to help with the emergency, and also others from their congregations. the fever took 7 of these nuns. their parishioners were the doctors, the sufferers and the workers of the people's parish commission. municipal regulations obliged the priests to issue grave licences and medical certificates in addition to their evangelical work. as ruiz moreno points out in the historical plague of 1871, the priests weren't let off. the city only had 40 funeral carriages so coffins were piled up in corners waiting for the carriages to pick them up as they travelled along their fixed routes. due to the huge demand, they added the plaza carriages, who charged excessively. there was the same problem with daily prices of medicines, which in reality weren't much help for relieving the symptoms. each day there were more deaths, including the carpenters, so they stopped making coffins from wood and started wrapping the corpses in drapes instead. for the rest, the garbage carts were called into funeral service and they began using mass graves. looting and assaults on citizens increased. there were even cases where thieves disguised themselves as invalids, to gain entrance to hospitals. they formed commission no. 14, under comisario lisandro suárez, to combat the incessant criminal activity. they patrolled the streets day and night, padlocking the street doors of the san telmo houses abandoned in a rush by their owners, and the keys were delivered to the chief of police. in the south cemetery, situated at the entrance to what is now parque ameghino in the avenida caseros, the capacity of 2,300 was overwhelmed. so the municipal government acquired seven hectares in the chacarita de los colegiales where the parque los andes is today, which has been la chacarita cemetery since 1886. on 4 april 400 invalids died, and the administrator of that cemetery informed the members of the people's commission that they had 630