May 17, 1901.] 
Following this date fresh cases occurred 
from time to time, and the occurrence of 
these cases was officially reported by the 
city bacteriologist and by the surgeon of 
the Quarantine Station of the Marine Hos- 
pital Service. The public press then began 
a campaign of personal abuse of Surgeon 
Kinyoun, the quarantine surgeon of the 
Marine Hospital Service, though this officer 
had done nothing but follow his orders and 
obey the law. -Matters dragged on until 
the opening of the State Legislature. In his 
message, his Excellency Governor Gage 
denied the existence of plague in the State 
and passed severe strictures upon the sur- 
A 
motion was then introduced into the Legis- 
geon of the Marine Hospital Service. 
lature requesting the National Government 
to recall surgeon Kinyoun, the implication 
again being that Dr. Kinyoun had exceeded 
his authority, a charge which was entirely 
unfounded, as every other surgeon in the 
service would of necessity have done ex- 
actly as did Dr. Kinyoun. Dr. Kinyoun 
thereupon demanded an investigation of 
the hygienic state of affairs in San Fran- 
cisco. The Treasury Department thereupon 
sent to San Francisco a special committee 
composed of men of international reputa- 
tion as experts in matters of the kind, men 
entirely without connection with the Marine 
Hospital Service, and in fact connected 
with large institutions of public learning. 
The committee consisted of Professor Flex- 
ner, of the University of Pennsylvania, 
Professor Novy, of the University of Michi- 
gan, and Professor Barker, of the University 
of Chicago. 
Upon the advent in San Francisco of 
SCIENCE. 
763 
these gentlemen, bills were introduced into 
the State Legislature making it a criminal 
offense for any one to report the existence 
of plague without the confirmation of the 
State Board of Health, and prohibiting the 
handling of cultures of the Bacillus pestis as 
prejudicial to the public health; these bills 
were not pushed, and did not pass; they 
are mentioned simply to illustrate the men- 
tal attitude from which they sprang. It had 
been previously charged that the bacteri- 
ologists reporting the cases of plague had 
intentionally infected with the Bacillus 
pestis the bodies of Chinamen dead of 
other causes, in order to bolster up their 
diagnoses ; this absurdly vindictive charge 
is repeated simply to illustrate to what an 
appalling extent of mental and moral error 
prejudice will carry men. The special 
commission spent several weeks in San 
Francisco, saw and studied six cases of 
plague, and presented a report confirming 
the existence of the disease in the city. On 
the receipt of the information of the con- 
tents of this report, a committee of citizens 
went to Washington, and an agreement 
was entered into with the national authori- 
ties, that the city of San Francisco and 
the State of California were to furnish the 
funds wherewith the section of the city 
known as Chinatown was to be cleaned 
and disinfected under the supervision of an 
officer of the Marine Hospital Service, and 
this disinfection is now in progress. 
That the existence of plague in San 
Francisco has been of considerable com- 
mercial loss to the State is without ques- 
tion. That the misfortune of the occurrence 
of plague in San Francisco must, in the 
