True Life Tuesday: The 1900-1904 San Francisco Plague

 
In the 1850s there were a few outbreaks of the bubonic plague in China and Hong Kong. Eventually this would spread to Hawaii and the mainland US. In January 1900 the SS Australia laid anchor in the Port of San Francisco after a voyage from Honolulu. The ship was unloaded near the sewers that lead to Chinatown. This allowed rat that were infected with the plague to escape. Soon the bubonic plague was found in the overcrowded Chinatown ghettos. Rumors of the plague were rampant catching the attention of authorities on Angel Island. A Chinese American, Chick Gin, was the first official victim of the plague in California. On February 7 he became ill with what doctors though was either typhus or gonorrhea. However, no medicines worked and he died in his bed 4 weeks later. His body was autopsied and the city bacteriologist, Wilfred H. Kellogg, thought he saw plague bacilli when viewing samples under his microscope. 

Kellogg decided to send the samples to the more sophisticated lab on Angel Island but the results would take 4 days to come in. The Board of Health was contacted and he insisted that Chinatown be place under immediate quarantine. The quarantine was put in place on March 7th making it impossible for 25,000-36,000 residents to leave. The mayor, James Phelan, insisted on keeping the quarantine even against the wishes of Chinese leaders who said it was unnecessary. He claimed that the Chinese population was "unclean, filthy, and a constant menace to public health." The Board of Health ended up lifting the quarantine on March 9th. On March 11th it was determined that the plague was in the city when 2 guinea pigs and a rat who were exposed to samples from the first victim died. The Board of Health inspected every building in Chinatown and worked to disinfect the neighborhoods.

California governor, Henry Gage, denied the existence of the plague for fear of the impact to the economies of the city and state. Medical officials asked US Treasury Secretary, Lyman J. Gage, to intervene. He created a commission of 3 medical scholars who confirmed the presence of the plague. Governor Gage doubled down and no longer allowed the commission access to the lab at the University of California, Berkeley where they were working. Another quarantine of Chinatown was announced and all east Asians were denied entry to California. The outbreak continued to worsen through 1901 and 1902. Governor Gage accused federal authorities of falsifying cases by injecting cadavers with bacteria. Laws were passed by the California legislature banning medical professionals from discussing the plague. Gage lost the governors election in 1902 to George Pandee. The new governor implemented public health measures and the epidemic was declared over in 1904. In total there were 121 identified cases resulting in 119 deaths.