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The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco
 
 

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The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco [Hardcover]

Marilyn Chase (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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From Publishers Weekly

In 1900, a ship called the Australia docked in San Francisco, carrying infected rats that launched a plague epidemic in the city, which raged sporadically for five years before it was subdued. Chase, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, argues in this engaging narrative that social, cultural and psychological issues prevented public health officials from curtailing the outbreak. Relying on published sources, diaries and letters, Chase shows how the disease first hit Chinatown and explains that most San Franciscans denied the outbreak, while others blamed the city's Chinese population (city officials hid behind worries about tourism and the city's reputation). But Chase goes beyond sociological analysis in this lively work and focuses on the players. While the first public health official assigned to stem the epidemic, Joseph Kinyoun, was an innovative scientist, Chase shows how he lacked the strategy and tact necessary for the task-his plan to quarantine Chinatown caused as many problems as it solved. Only when Rupert Blue, a new official, was assigned to the case after a second outbreak five years later, was the epidemic quashed. Avoiding pedantry and tediousness, Chase tells a story that highlights the true nature of epidemics-and how employing a combination of acceptance, perseverance and diplomacy are key to solving them. As she notes in her final pages, the parallels with the AIDS crisis are striking, and the lessons worth salting away for any future epidemics.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Chase's knowledge of the city and skill for making scientific concepts accessible to educated lay readers make this snapshot of a relatively unknown event vivid and thought provoking. Bubonic plague entered the port of San Francisco with the 20th century. For the next decade, it defied both medical and political efforts to eradicate it from an urban landscape fraught with ethnic distrust, new money, and old customs. The author offers a clear and telling portrait of the roles played by Chinese merchant societies, the white press, and Sacramento officials that initially enabled the disease to gain a foothold. She then turns most of her attention to detailing the scientific and personal strengths and weaknesses of the national public health officials who worked to determine efficient ways to diagnose, treat, and eventually halt the spread of the disease. In addition to finding readers among students already interested in modern medicine, Chase's book is a fine selection for ethnic studies and political science classes. Although the few photos do little to expand the narrative, the thumbnail descriptions of the disparate lives altered, ended, or detoured by San Francisco's experience with rats, fleas, and disease provide concrete images for readers with any imagination.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
THE NEW YEAR OF 1900 ushered in dangerous times. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
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 (7)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, fun, and a quick read despite flowery language, Dec 24 2003
By 
A. Kozak (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco (Hardcover)
If I thought too much about the language, I tended to think "who was this person's editor, and what were they drinking?" But despite the intermittent distraction, I found it fascinating. The author tells a real non-fiction story - and it measures up to a good fiction read. I'm from San Francisco, so I had an added interest in the location if not the topic, but, come on, who isn't fascinated by The Plague? The author jumped around in time in a way that had no rhyme or reason for me, but again, I wasn't more than temporarily distracted by this. Worth the time.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and Timely, Nov 10 2003
By 
Charles F. Kartman "ckartman" (Edgewater, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco (Hardcover)
Ms. Chase has mixed a veritable cauldron of explosive subjects about which to write something fresh: politics and race in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, the just emerging discoveries about plague vectors, topped off with brand new research into the characters who stood at the center of an outbreak of plague in San Francisco's Chinatown. She recounts how the early cases were misdiagnosed or dismissed in order to prevent damage to the city's reputation, and while the descriptions of individual cases is by its nature repetitive, the story is made all the more powerful as the epidemic's toll mounts and, finally, subsides. Ms. Chase describes the anti-rat campaign and its role in beating the plague, and pinpoints the seemingly minor difference in flea types that saved us from a much worse outbreak. Ms. Chase scrupulously avoided the easy paths to sensationalism and chose to stick to the facts. For instance, she makes the point that it was evident that the number of plague victims was being undercounted due to sufferers (or bodies) being removed from the city, possibly in collusion with authorities, but steadfastly sticks only to the proven cases in proving the existence of an "epidemic". The epidemic may have been far worse than recorded. And coming just as we were avoiding travel to certain destinations because of SARS, her book is an outstanding reminder of the responsibility of public health authorities to place the public good above all else in matters of infectious disease. If you are interested in the early days of public health in the United States, or wish to draw lessons for the present, this book is a must read!
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4.0 out of 5 stars The Black Death in Early San Francisco, Aug 12 2003
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This review is from: The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco (Hardcover)
This book is not only a fascinating look into the origins of the bubonic plauge in early San Francisco, tracing the disease's trek from China through Hong Kong to Chinatown in Honolulu and spreading itself in the western frontier of California; it is a view of how racism and politics affected interfered with solution. When plague first appeared in San Francisco, it struck the Chinatown area the hardest, inflaming tensions between the whites and the immigrants. When Dr. Joseph Kinyoun threatened quaratine of the entire area, the businessmen and politicians rose against him, putting the city' s profitability before the public's health. His replacement, Rupert Blue, managed the plague clean-up campaign with much diplomacy and brought about sweeping changes that not only curbed the rise of the plague, but also enhanced the city's image.

This book has it all -- poitical intrigue, racism, a disease out of control, heroes and villains. Sometimes non-fiction can be better than most novels, and in this case, it makes for a great book well worth reading.

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