We discuss the historic mortality record corresponding to the initial focus
of the yellow fever epidemic outbreak registered in Buenos Aires during the
year 1871 as compared to simulations of a stochastic population dynamics model.
This model incorporates the biology of the urban vector of yellow fever, the
mosquito Aedes aegypti, the stages of the disease in the human being as well as
the spatial extension of the epidemic outbreak. After introducing the
historical context and the restrictions it puts on initial conditions and
ecological parameters, we discuss the general features of the simulation and
the dependence on initial conditions and available sites for breeding the
vector. We discuss the sensitivity, to the free parameters, of statistical
estimators such as: final death toll, day of the year when the outbreak reached
half the total mortality and the normalized daily mortality, showing some
striking regularities. The model is precise and accurate enough to discuss the
truthfulness of the presently accepted historic discussions of the epidemic
causes, showing that there are more likely scenarios for the historic facts.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figure
