HISTORICAL 7 



God, to demons or evil spirits, comets, meteors, earthquakes, volcanic 

 eruptions, cyclones, eclipses of the sun, terrific storms, wars, famines, 

 great fires, etc. Even as late as 1799 no less an authority than Noah 

 Webster makes the following declaration: "All the great plagues which 

 have afflicted mankind have been accompanied with violent agitations of 

 the elements. The phenomenon most generally and closely connected 

 with pestilence is an earthquake. From all the facts which I can find in 

 history, I question whether an instance of any considerable plague, in 

 any country, can be mentioned which has not been immediately preceded 

 by, or accompanied with, convulsions of the earth. If any exceptions 

 have occurred, they have escaped my researches. It does not happen 

 that every place where pestilence prevails is shaken; but during the prog- 

 ress of the disease which I denominate pestilence, and which runs, in cer- 

 tain periods, over large portions of the globe, some parts of the earth, 

 and especially those which abound most with subterranean fire, are 

 violently agitated." Were Noah Webster alive, he would certainly cite 

 the recent plague on the Pacific Coast as bearing out his assertions. On 

 April 1 8, 1906, the coast region about San Francisco was certainly " vio- 

 lently agitated," and this phenomenon was followed by the plague (black 

 pest, bubonic plague). But what were the actual facts? The plague 

 had, in all probability, ^existed in a sporadic form in " Chinatown," in 

 San Francisco, and in other places on the Pacific coast for many years. 

 In 1903 several authentic cases came to notice and were reported. The 

 reasons. why the disease had not previously gained a stronger foothold in 

 San Francisco are several. Chinatown is more or less isolated (socially, 

 at least) from the rest of the city, and the poorer, more filthy class of the 

 Chinese do not as a rule mingle with the white population. The disease 

 is an Oriental filth disease. After the earthquake and fire of April 18-22, 



1906, the Chinese of all classes, the plague-infected rats and fleas of the 

 Chinese quarters, became thoroughly intermingled with the rest of the 

 stricken population, and as a result there were established several new foci 

 of plague infection, which accounted for the increase in plague cases in 



1907, a condition which was soon under control, thanks to the strenuous 

 efforts of the federal government, the board of health, and various citizens, 

 organizations. 



Several writers of remote times, as well as occasional writers of the dark 

 and middle ages, held the opinion that the cause of disease, the disease- 

 producing efiiuvias, might be carried long distances by air currents, in 

 ships, or by caravans, and that the poison may enter the system via the 

 air passages, through the skin, or through the digestive tract. Hodges, 

 an Englishman, who wrote a treatise on the London plague of 1665, de- 

 clared that some essential alteration in the air is necessary to the propaga- 



