Luke P. Blackburn

Luke Pryor Blackburn (1816 to 1887) was an American physician from Kentucky who became known for fighting yellow fever and later served as governor of his state. After earning a medical degree at Transylvania University he moved to Natchez, Mississippi, where in 1848 he carried out the first successful quarantine against yellow fever in the Mississippi River valley and came to be regarded as an expert on the disease. He often worked without a fee during outbreaks and paid from his own funds for a hospital for Mississippi River boatmen, then lobbied Congress to build similar hospitals along the river. He later helped in yellow fever outbreaks in Bermuda, on the Gulf Coast, and in Memphis, Fernandina and Hickman. After the Civil War a Confederate double agent accused him of plotting to start a yellow fever epidemic in the North; a Toronto court acquitted him, though historians still disagree about the strength of the evidence. He was elected governor of Kentucky in 1879, served until 1883, and is remembered for prison reform.