The history of pestilence
in New York City

Over the years New York City's death
rate rose and fell with the irregular
arrival of epidemic diseases. With
improvements in sanitation and public
health, including the pasteurization of
milk, the death rate leveled off after the
influenza epidemic of 1918-20 and
stayed essentially flat for more than half
a century. Now the AIDS epidemic is
beginning to send the death rate up again.

Source: New York City Department of Health