[From miasmas to mosquitoes: medical thought on yellow fever in Yucatan, 1890-1920].

Yellow fever has been a public health concern since colonial days because of its frequent epidemics and high mortality rate. This analysis of medical thought about "the black vomit" in the Yucatan and the evolution of this thinking from 1890 through 1921 first addresses some of the disease's antecedents and preponderant ideas prior to 1881 as well as Carlos Finlay's efforts to convince the medical community that his theory was right. The article goes on to analyze the co-existence of miasmatic and bacterial ideas and to show how medical initiatives began focusing on eradication of the mosquito transmitter once Finlay's postulates had been demonstrated.