Public Health Figures and Orgs
A well-educated physician, inventor, leader in the fields microbiology and infectious disease; the founder and former Director of the United States Hygienic Laboratory dispatched to San Francisco to confirm cases of the plague and enact public health measures; the U.S.’s foremost plague authority, he was the newly appointed head of the Marine Hospital Service on Angel Island
Joseph J. Kinyoun
A former Six Companies secretary, hired as a local translator and go-between by the neutral, federal commission of three prominent U.S. bacteriologists; the link between the medical establishment, the San Francisco establishment, the Six Companies, and Chinatown; eventually acted as a cultural liaison, translator, and interpreter for Blue
Wong Chung
an infectious disease caused by Yersinia pestis bacteria transmitted through the bites of infected fleas that live on small rodents; the most common form of plague, characterized by painful swollen lymph nodes or “buboes”; decimated the populations of Europe and North Africa in two separate pandemics over centuries (and the third raged across Asia)
Bubonic Plague
The universal human tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that supports your preexisting beliefs; this bias was present in the historical belief that plague was spread solely by Chinese people and that it was the “Chinese problem”
Confirmation bias
The first federal health agency in the U.S., established in 1798 to provide medical care for sick and injured merchant seamen; in later public health contexts, it was charged with fighting the spread of epidemics, using federal powers of quarantine and surveillance
Marine Hospital Service (MHS)
A consortium of district associations that led the people of Chinatown; the biggest merchants in Chinatown and the most influential members of their associations
Chinese Six Companies
extremely painful, swollen lymph nodes that often form in the groin, armpits, or neck and are the hallmark physical symptom of bubonic plague
Buboes
Pre-19th-century medical belief that diseases like cholera and the plague were caused by “bad air”: noxious, foul-smelling vapors from rotting organic matter
Miasma/Bad Air
Kinyoun’s quarantine office replacement who worked to eradicate the rat population of San Francisco, controlling the spread of plague and revising the harsh protocol of his predecessor; had a more personable approach and personality compared to Kinyoun; after the 1906 earthquake, returned to San Francisco to respond to a new outbreak, eventually confirming that plague was a disease of the environment; became the 4th surgeon general after his success in San Francisco
Rupert Lee Blue
A Chinese lumber yard worker who lived in Chinatown; the first official plague victim and first diagnosed case of bubonic plague in the U.S. who struggled with mounting fever, exhaustion, and painfully swollen lymph nodes
Wong Chut King
Discussion Question
"In San Francisco that flea bite would inject a lower dose, harder for it to become a full-blown disease."
In your opinion, had the fleas had the same method of transmitting plague as they did in Europe and Asia, would plague have been a bigger problem in San Francisco? Would the explosion of cases motivated the government and public health authorities to take more action?
Discussion Question
“In 1908, the first truly grassroots, fully public, multi-sector health campaign was born, educating the populace on simple things like the right way to dispose of garbage…. They also educated greengrocers on the right way to store their wares to keep the city streets clean. And they informed the essential nature of sanitary precautions.”
How did Blue finally “round the corner” on combatting the plague outbreak? In a future infectious disease outbreak, how might public health solutions shape the infrastructure of communities at risk?
Discussion Question
“In the end, we needed collaboration and cooperation by the federal, state, and local governments, participation by the citizenry, understanding and acceptance of science.”
When does a public health crisis become a municipality, state, national, or international issue? How should various governments take responsibility and act against a health crisis to ensure public safety?
An assistant pastor who started the Chung Sai Yat Po newspaper; he and his newspaper documented what the deeply felt fears and concerns were of Chinese laborers—how they distrusted Western medical authority and feared what was going to happen to them
Ng Poon Chew
a vaccine recently developed during the San Francisco plague outbreak that Kinyoun urged every Chinatown resident get; largely untested, with existing data showing only a 50% protection rate; had notorious, purported side effects, including severe pains and numbness
Haffkine vaccine
A federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur that prohibited all Chinese people from citizenship, essentially relegating them to the margins of society
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
The surgeon general; published a paper on plague, full of speculation and misinformation (false arguments about how the disease was spread); endorsed racial theories of the time (the disease targeted Asians while sparing white people)
Walter Wyman
Discussion Questions
“There was this kind of idea that the Chinese carry a particular virulent form of some kind of disease—whether it was smallpox, or syphilis, or bubonic plague—and that the disease is endemic to their bodies, that it would be possible to infect innocent middle-class white people.”
Was a similar understanding held about COVID 19? How did the targeted communities advocate for themselves in response to blame placed on them for covid?
The technique used to identify and classify bacteria from patient samples. Specifically for Yersinia Pestis (the bacteria that causes plague), the sample will turn pink
Gram Stain
Geographic areas with a high concentration of residents from a specific ethnic group, usually immigrants; according to the film, “a combination of ethnic solidarity and discrimination and exclusion”
Ethnic enclaves