page_title: San Francisco plague of 1900–1904
section_title: Infection
hierarchical_section_title: San Francisco plague of 1900–1904 / Infection
caption_attribution_description: James D. Phelan, Mayor of San Francisco, California, and later U.S. Senator for California
context_page_description: 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 a fire in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, including all of the Chinatown district. The process of rebuilding began immediately but took several years.
context_section_description: 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.
  Rumors of the plague's presence abounded in the city, quickly gaining the notice of authorities from MHS stationed on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, including Chief Kinyoun.
  A Chinese-American named Chick Gin, Wing Chung Ging or Wong Chut King became the first official plague victim in California. The 41-year-old man, born in China (San Francisco resident for 16 years) was a bachelor living in the basement of the Globe Hotel, in Chinatown, at the intersection of the streets, now called, Grant and Jackson. The Globe Hotel was built in 1857, with the appearance of an Italian palazzo. However, by the mid-1870s it was a squalid tenement crowded with Chinese residents. Just outside, Jackson Street was the Chinese red-light district, where unmarried men could visit "hundred-men's-wives".
  On February 7, 1900, Wong Chut King, the owner of a lumber yard, fell sick with what the Chinese doctors thought was typhus or gonorrhea, the latter a sexually transmitted disease common to Chinatown's residents at that time. After failed medications and no relief for his illness, he passed away in his bed after suffering for four weeks. In the morning, the body was taken to a Chinese undertaker where it was examined by San Francisco police surgeon Frank P. Wilson on March 6, 1900. Wilson called for A.P. O'Brien, a city health department officer, after finding suspiciously swollen lymph glands. Wilson and O'Brien then summoned Wilfred H. Kellogg, San Francisco's city bacteriologist, and the three men performed an autopsy as night closed. Looking through his microscope, Kellogg thought he saw plague bacilli.
  Late at night, Kellogg ran the suspicious samples of lymph fluid to Angel Island to be tested on animals in Kinyoun's better-equipped laboratory - an operation that would take at least four days. Meanwhile, Wilson and O'Brien called upon the city's Board of Health and insisted that Chinatown be quarantined immediately. 
  When dawn came on March 7, 1900, Chinatown was circled by rope and surrounded by policemen preventing egress or access to anyone but Whites. The 12-block area was bordered by four streets: Broadway, Kearney, California and Stockton. Approximately 25,000–35,000 residents were unable to leave. Chinese Consul General Ho Yow felt that the quarantine was likely based on false assumptions and that it was entirely unfair to Chinese people and would seek an injunction to lift the quarantine. San Francisco mayor James D. Phelan was in favor of keeping the Chinese-speaking residents separated from the Anglo-Americans – claiming that Chinese- Americans were unclean, filthy, and "a constant menace to the public health." 
  Nevertheless, the Board of Health lifted the quarantine on March 9 after it had been in force for only 2½ days. O'Brien said, by way of explanation, that "the general clamor had become too great to ignore". The animals tested in Kinyoun's lab seemed to be in normal conditions after the first 48 hours of being exposed to the possible plague-causing agents. The lack of early response cast doubt on the theory that plague was the cause of Wong Chut King's death.
  On March 11, Kinyoun's lab presented its results. Two guinea pigs and one rat died after being exposed to samples from the first victim, proving the plague was indeed in Chinatown. Without restoring the quarantine, the Board of Health inspected every building in Chinatown, and labored to disinfect the neighborhood. Property was taken and burned if it w
caption: Mayor James D. Phelan called Chinese-Americans "a constant menace to the public health."
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