This Halloween season, let us all be grateful that we are not living in New Orleans in August of 1853. In this ill fated year the most deadly yellow fever epidemic in American History ravaged the crescent city. It is said that 1 in 15 people died from Yellow Jack that summer. No New Orleanian was untouched by the epidemic, though the populations that suffered most were immigrants, children, laborers and the poor. Those with means would either leave the city to avoid the epidemic altogether, or remain locked away in the cleanliness of their homes. But even those with access to health care and the most sanitary conditions were not spared the constant threat of death. The city was quiet that August—save the screams of the dying and the occasional cannon blast, shot in an effort to cleanse the bad air from the atmosphere—and reeked of death.