corpses without graves, with others being found by the wayside, and 12 of their gravediggers had died. then the knights hector varela, carlos guido spano, and manuel bilbao among others took the decision to officiate at burials and rescued anyone from the mass graves who still showed signs of life, including a richly-dressed french lady. on 9–11 april over 500 deaths were registered daily, reaching the peak of the epidemic on 10 april with 583 deaths, compared to the normal rate before the epidemic of around 20 deaths per day. the buenos aires western railway extended a line from the avenida corrientes down to the cemetery and started running a train for the dead, with two journeys a day solely for transporting the dead. the track started at the station bermejo, located in the southwest corner of the street of the same name (jean jaurés today) where it joined the avenue. there were two other corpse pick-up points in addition to the one at bermejo. these were at the southwest corner of corrintes with medrano, and the southeast corner of corrientes with scalabrini ortiz (now called camino minisro inglés). the authorities who had not abandoned the city provided railway wagons as emergency living quarters in what is now greater buenos aires and offered people free tickets to get out there. the people's commission recommended that people should leave as soon as possible. on the aforementioned date of peak death, 10 april, the national and provincial government decreed a holiday until the end of the month, which in reality was no more than official recognition of what was actually happening. then the count began to descend, perhaps helped by the first frosts of winter, falling to 89, but at the end of the month there was a new peak of 161, probably caused by the return of some people from the earlier evacuation. this in turn led to a new flight. the month ended with a total of 8,000 deaths. the deaths reduced during may, and by the middle of that month the city had returned to normal activity, and by the 20th the commission ended their activity. on 2 june, there wasn't a single case registered. the scourge of black vomit never returned to the city. the consequences in total, 60 priests, 12 doctors (including some with a distinguished career such as manuel argerich and francisco javier muñiz), 22 members of the commission of hygiene and 4 of the people's commission gave their lives for their citizens. it's difficult to establish the precise number of deaths caused by the fever, but it's fairly certain to be between 13,500 and 26,200. the count considered as official is the one given by the revista médico quirúrgica by the bonaerense medical association who said there had been 13,641 deaths. they in turn had taken the figure from mardoqueo navarro, a witness to the tragedy who wrote it in his personal diary. his account was used by the historian miguel ángel scenna. mardoqueo also counted the nationalities of the dead: 3,397 argentinians, 6,201 italians, 1,608 spanish, 1,384 french, 220 english, 233 germans, 571 unidentified. according to dr penna, who collated the registers of the cemeteries (including those from parque ameghino, where there were graves of 11,000 people), the correct figure is 14,467. the english newspaper the standard published a count of 26,000 dead, which is considered an exaggeration and provoked indignation. many historians consider that this epidemic was one of the main causes of the reduction of the black population in buenos aires, because they mostly lived in the miserable conditions in the south of the city. many lawsuits began, related to wills suspected of being forged by criminals looking to make their fortune at the expense of the true heirs. other cases involved the abandoned houses that thieves had broken into. the flight of the population caused the failure of most public and private establishments. on 21 june the first order of argentinian knights was founded, called the iron cross of the knights of the order of martyrs, and was awarded to those who had helped the victims of the plague. awareness grew of the urgency of establishing a solution to the problem of obtaining and distributing water clean enough to drink. in 1869, the english engineer john f. la trobe bateman had presented a project of running water, sewers and drains, which enhanced a previous proposal of the engineer john coghlan. these were put into practice and in 1874 batement started construction of the network, which by 1880 provided water to a quarter of the city. in 1873 he started construction of the sewage works. in 1875, the collection of waste was centralised with the creation of rubbish dumps. until then, most people had just thrown all their waste into ditches and streams. juan manuel blanes, the uruguayan painter who lived in buenos aires, painted an oil on canvas (currently in montevideo) called the episode of the yellow fever, reproduced in this article, inspired by one done during the tragedy, probably on 17 march 1871 in balcarce street. in it we see a woman (ana bristani), dead of the fever, lying across the floor of a tenement. her son, a baby of a few months, searches for his mother's breast. his father's corpse lies on a bed on the right. the door is open and through it you can see the doctors roque pérez (centre) and manuel argerich (on the right) entering the room. they were members of the people's commission who themselves died of the fever. the famous picture became an emotional tribute to those who gave their own lives trying to save those of their citizens. guillermo enrique hudson, the naturalist and writer born in argentina, wrote a story in 1888 called "ralph herne", which goes through the epidemic of 1871. in it he relates the following description: ...but the years of peace and prosperity did not delete the memory of that terrible period when during three long months the shadow of the angel of death extended over the city of the nice name, when the daily harvest of victims were thrown together—old and young, rich and poor, virtuous and villains—to mix their bones in a communal grave, when each day the echo of footsteps interrupted the silence less often, when like the past the streets became "desolate and grassy". in 1884, fearing the appearance of a new outbreak, the doctors josé maría ramos mejía, director of public assistance, and josé penna, director of the casa de aislamiento (now the hospital muñiz), decided to cremate the body of a pedro doime, who had been affected by the yellow fever. that was the first cremation to take place in buenos aires. only one monument, erected in 1899, exists today in the city to commemorate the victims of the worst tragedy, in terms of number of victims, to hit buenos aires. it is situated in what was the south cemetery, which as we have said is now ameghino park, in the place where the cemetery administration took place. one of the inscriptions there reads: the people of buenos aires who fell victim due to the yellow fever epidemic of 1871. notable people notable people who died during the epidemic were: sinforoso amoedo, md manuel argerich, md lucio norberto mansilla, general and governor francisco javier muñiz, md franklin rawson, painter ernesto tornquist, entrepreneur