The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-06-15
WASHINGTON PASSES ON THE
SAN FRANCISCO PLAGUE

cisco had been led to believe that plague
was a disease of frightful contagious
ness: when, then, the quarantine was
raised, and the Chinese population was
allowed to go where it chose in the light
| of the afore-stated information the dis
ease was expected to spread at once
through the city. 1t did, of course, moth
eral public at once lost confidence in the
| local Board of Health and in the correct
ness of the diagnosis.
Matters dragged on, we are told,
until the opening of the State Legisla-
ture. In his message, Governor Gage
denied the existence of plague in the
State, and passed severe structures upon
the surgeon of the Marine Hospital
service. A motion was passed by the
Legislature requesting the national
Government to recall the surgeon, Kin
youn, WHO demanded an investigation
of the hygienic state of affairs in San
Francisco. The Treasury Department
thereupon sent to San Francisco a spe-
cial committee, composed of men of
international reputation. Upon their
arrival bills were introduced into the
Legislature making it criminal Of
Tense for anyone to report the exist
ence of plague without the confirmation
of the State Board of Health, and pro-
hibiting the handling of cultures of
the bacillus pests as prejudicial to the
public health. These bills did not pass,
but they serve to illustrate the pecu-
liar mental attitude of some of the leg
islators. 1t had been charged that
psychologists had Intentionally in
fected with the bacillus pests TIE bodies
/! of Cinnamon dead of other causes, in
order to bolster up their diagnosis. The
special commission, after spending sew
eral weeks in San Francisco and study
ing six cases of plague, presented a re-
port confirming the existence of the
disease in the city A committee of
citizens then went to Washington, and
agreed with the national authorities
that the city of San Francisco and the
State of California should bear the ex-
pense of cleaning and disinfecting
Chinatown, under the supervision of an
/ officer of the Marine Hospital service.
This disinfection is now in progress
The writer goes on to say:
That now, one year after the trouble
began, the State is compelled to do what
it all along refused to do undertake the
hygienic renovation of Chinatown Is an
| obvious proof of the correctness of the
frank and open course. Had the Chinese
section been promptly and effectively
cleaned one year ago, the disease would
(; have been stamped out at little cost, and
! the episode would have been ere this for
gotten. At present the pail still hangs
/ over California and there is a general
distrust of her on the part of the other
States We trust that the present meas
ures will prove effective. and that the
State has escaped the occurrence of Sc
rious epidemic; but this escape will have
been purely accidental, and in matters
like these a community has not the right
to trust to the fortune of chance.
Conditions have apparently not been
favorable to the immediate spread of the
disease. This is, however, an old expe-
rience; in many places and at many
times the plague has dragged along for
a long while, only to suddenly flare up
into an active epidemic. The recent ex-
perience in Cape Town is a fresh Illus
tration. The plague has been present
and dragging along in Cape Town for
eighteen months; on account of the mill
tary situation, it's effective eradication
was neglected, and now the disease has
reused into active form. 1t is this risk
which San Francisco has been running,
and this risk no community has the right
! to assume