Replies

Per Wiki

The San Francisco plague of 1900–1904 was an epidemic of bubonic plague centered on San Francisco’s Chinatown. It was the first plague epidemic in the continental United States. The epidemic was recognized by medical authorities in March 1900, but its existence was denied for more than two years by California’s Governor Henry Gage. His denial was based on business reasons, to protect the reputations of San Francisco and California and to prevent the loss of revenue due to quarantine. The failure to act quickly may have allowed the disease to establish itself among local animal populations. Federal authorities worked to prove that there was a major health problem, and they isolated the affected area; this undermined the credibility of Gage, and he lost the governorship in the 1902 elections. The new Governor George Pardee implemented a medical solution and the epidemic was stopped in 1904. There were 121 cases identified, including 119 deaths.

Much of urban San Francisco was destroyed by fire in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, including all of the Chinatown district. The process of rebuilding began immediately but took several years. While reconstruction was in full swing, a second plague epidemic hit San Francisco in May and August 1907 but it was not centered in Chinatown. Cases occurred randomly throughout the city, including cases identified across the bay in Oakland. San Francisco’s politicians and press reacted very differently this time, wanting the problem to be solved speedily. Health authorities worked quickly to assess and eradicate the disease. Approximately $2 million was spent between 1907 and 1911 to kill as many rats as possible in the city in order to control one of the disease’s vectors.

In June 1908, 160 more cases had been identified, including 78 deaths, a much lower mortality rate than 1900–1904. All of the infected people were European, and the California ground squirrel was identified as another vector of the disease. The initial denial of the 1900 infection may have allowed the pathogen to gain its first toehold in America, from which it spread sporadically to other states in the form of sylvatic plague (rural plague). However, it is possible that the ground squirrel infection predated 1900.

The third pandemic of the plague started in 1855 in China and eventually killed about 15 million people, mainly in India. In 1894, the plague hit Hong Kong, a major trade port between China and the US.[13][14] US officials were worried that others would get infections from cargo carried by ships that would cross the Pacific Ocean. For these reasons, all ships were rigorously inspected. At that time, however, it was not widely known that rats could carry plague, and that fleas on those rats could transmit the disease to humans. Ships arriving in US ports were declared clean after inspection of the passengers showed no signs of disease. Health officials conducted no tests on rats or fleas. Despite important advances in the 1890s in the fight against bubonic plague, many of the world’s doctors did not immediately change their ineffective and outdated methods.

In November 1898, the US Marine Hospital Service (MHS) chief surgeon, James M. Gassaway, felt obliged to refute rumors of plague in San Francisco. Supported by the city’s health officer, Gassaway said that some Chinese residents had died of pneumonia or lung edema, and it was not bubonic plague.

In January 1900, Honolulu’s Chinatown burned down in an effort to control bubonic plague.
In the newly formed US Territory of Hawaii, the city of Honolulu fell victim to the plague in December 1899. Residents of Honolulu were reporting cases of fever and swollen lymph glands forming bubos, with severe internal organ damage – quickly leading to death. Not knowing precisely how to control the spread of the disease, city health officials decided to burn infected houses. For four months, thousands of residents were evacuated and quarantined.[citation needed] On January 20, 1900, changing winds fanned the flames out of control, and nearly all of Chinatown burned—38 acres (15 ha)—leaving 6,000 without homes.

The extensive maritime operations of the port of San Francisco caused concern among medical men such as Joseph J. Kinyoun, the chief quarantine officer of the MHS in San Francisco, about the infection spreading to California. A Japanese ship, the S.S. Nippon Maru, arriving in San Francisco Bay in June 1899, had two plague deaths at sea, and there were two more cases of stowaways found dead in the bay, with postmortem cultures proving they had the plague. In New York in November 1899, the British ship J.W. Taylor brought three cases of plague from Brazil, but the cases were confined to the ship. The Japanese freighter S.S. Nanyo Maru arrived in Port Townsend, Washington, on January 30, 1900, with 3 deaths out of 17 cases of confirmed plague. All of these ships were quarantined; they are not known to have infected the general population. However, it is possible that plague escaped some unknown ship by way of fleas or rats, later to infect US residents.

In this atmosphere of grave danger, January 1900, Kinyoun ordered all ships coming to San Francisco from China, Japan, Australia and Hawaii to fly yellow flags to warn of possible plague on board. Many entrepreneurs and sailing men felt that this was bad for business, and unfair to ships that were free of plague. City promoters were confident that plague could not take hold, and they were unhappy with what they saw as Kinyoun’s high-handed abuse of authority. On February 4, 1900, the Sunday magazine supplement of the San Francisco Examiner carried an article titled “Why San Francisco Is Plague-Proof”. Certain American experts held the mistaken belief that a rice-based diet left Asians with a lower resistance to plague, and that a diet of meat kept Europeans free from this disease.

In January 1900, the four-masted steamship S.S. Australia laid anchor in the Port of San Francisco. The ship sailed between Honolulu and San Francisco regularly, and its passengers and crew were declared clean. Cargo from Honolulu, unloaded at a dock near the outfall of Chinatown’s sewers, may have allowed rats carrying the plague to leave the ship and transmit the infection. However, it is difficult to trace the infection to a single vessel. Wherever it came from, the disease was soon established in the cramped Chinese ghetto neighborhood; a sudden increase in dead rats was observed as local rats became infected.

Mayor James D. Phelan called Chinese-Americans “a constant menace to the public health.”

Between 1901 and 1902, the plague outbreak continued to worsen. In a 1901 address to both houses of the California State Legislature, Gage accused federal authorities, particularly Kinyoun, of injecting plague bacteria into cadavers, falsifying evidence. In response to what he said to be massive scaremongering by the MHS, Gage pushed a censorship bill to gag any media reports of plague infection. The bill failed in the California State Legislature, yet laws to gag reports amongst the medical community succeeded in passage and were signed into law by the governor. In addition, $100,000 was allocated to a public campaign led by Gage to deny the plague’s existence. Privately, however, Gage sent a special commission to Washington, D.C., consisting of Southern Pacific, newspaper and shipping lawyers to negotiate a settlement with the MHS, whereby the federal government would remove Kinyoun from San Francisco with the promise that the state would secretly cooperate with the MHS in stamping out the plague epidemic.

In October 1900, Kinyoun was the subject of a political cartoon about his being kicked out of his federal position.
Despite the secret agreement allowing for Kinyoun’s removal, Gage went back on his promise of assisting federal authorities and continued to obstruct their efforts for study and quarantine. A report issued by the State Board of Health on September 16, 1901, bolstered Gage’s claims, denying the plague’s outbreak.

Upon the death of Wong Chut King, the San Francisco Health Board took immediate action to prevent the spread of plague: Chinatown was quarantined. Health officials, in order to prevent the propagation of the disease, made the decision of placing Chinatown under quarantine, without any notice to the residents - targeting Chinese residents only. White Americans that were walking the streets of Chinatown were allowed to leave; everybody else was forced to stay. Physicians were restricted from crossing into Chinatown to identify and help the sick. The Health Board had to approve whether or not any health official crossed into the quarantined area. Due to lack of evidence that the cause of death of King was plague, the quarantine was removed the day after to avoid controversy.

Kinyoun’s lab confirmed the disease was bubonic plague and informed the Health Board right away. In an attempt to avoid a second controversial quarantine, the Health Board continued with a house-to-house inspection to look for possible plague infested households – disinfecting those that were thought to be at risk of infection. Participants in the house-to-house examination were mainly volunteer physicians and residents. On the contrary, other residents did not support the inspection and that the disinfecting plan was not being done in good faith. Believing a second quarantine would be soon implemented, worried residents began to flee quietly and hide in friends’ houses outside of Chinatown.

As days passed, more dead bodies were reported and autopsies revealed the presence of plague bacilli, indicating that a plague epidemic had hit San Francisco’s Chinatown, but the health board still was trying to deny it. The health board attempted to keep all the information regarding the outbreak secret by implementing strict regulations of what physicians could write official death certificates. Nevertheless, newspapers published the news of the presence of bubonic plague in San Francisco to the entire nation.

In January 1900, Honolulu’s Chinatown burned down in an effort to control bubonic plague.

Much of this post is from:
Risse, Guenter B. (2012). Plague, fear, and politics in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-1-4214-0510-0.