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January 20, 1900.

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The skies above Oahu
were black with smoke.

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Bubonic plague had been discovered

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00:00:41,144 --> 00:00:43,871
in Honolulu's Chinatown

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00:00:43,905 --> 00:00:47,633
and panicked health officials
were doing everything they could

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00:00:47,668 --> 00:00:51,810
to try to stop the spread.

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00:00:51,844 --> 00:00:55,607
In those
days, they didn't really understand

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00:00:55,641 --> 00:01:00,163
how plague was transmitted,
so the public health approach

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00:01:00,198 --> 00:01:01,578
was isolate people.

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00:01:01,613 --> 00:01:05,134
They would wall off a whole area
with police and checkpoints

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00:01:05,168 --> 00:01:07,619
and wouldn't let anybody in or out.

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00:01:07,653 --> 00:01:08,930
But if they couldn't stop the problem,

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00:01:08,965 --> 00:01:11,209
they would often do targeted
burnings of buildings.

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00:01:13,418 --> 00:01:14,729
Their point of view is,

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00:01:14,764 --> 00:01:16,214
you know, "We don't care what you do.

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00:01:16,248 --> 00:01:17,870
"If you have to burn the place down,

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00:01:17,905 --> 00:01:20,321
just make sure that you contain
this epidemic."

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00:01:23,186 --> 00:01:25,878
Desperate
residents fled their burning homes

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00:01:25,913 --> 00:01:29,296
as the fire spiraled out of control.

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00:01:31,160 --> 00:01:34,197
And mobs of white residents stood by

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00:01:34,232 --> 00:01:38,960
with clubs and revolvers...
threatening to kill any Asian

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00:01:38,995 --> 00:01:43,482
who tried to skirt the exit lane
out of the quarantine zone.

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00:01:48,798 --> 00:01:52,733
This is the Black
Plague of the Middle Ages that wiped out

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00:01:52,767 --> 00:01:54,286
one-third of the population in Europe.

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00:01:56,426 --> 00:01:59,878
So, we have this sense
if it wasn't stopped,

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00:01:59,912 --> 00:02:02,363
the consequences would be unbearable.

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00:02:06,505 --> 00:02:09,129
The fires burned for 17 days

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00:02:09,163 --> 00:02:12,787
and left nearly all of Chinatown in ashes.

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00:02:12,822 --> 00:02:16,964
4,500 of its residents were homeless.

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00:02:20,105 --> 00:02:22,901
The most feared disease in history,

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00:02:22,935 --> 00:02:27,043
bubonic plague, was an unsolved mystery.

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00:02:27,077 --> 00:02:30,598
It had decimated the populations
of Europe and North Africa

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00:02:30,633 --> 00:02:35,189
in two separate pandemics
over hundreds of years,

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00:02:35,224 --> 00:02:38,951
and the third was now raging across Asia.

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00:02:41,782 --> 00:02:43,611
This was the start of the steamship era.

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00:02:43,646 --> 00:02:45,475
So now disease and people and goods

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00:02:45,510 --> 00:02:49,272
can travel around the world
incredibly quickly.

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00:02:49,307 --> 00:02:53,966
And the bubonic plague
spreads along Hong Kong,

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00:02:54,001 --> 00:02:56,245
spreads to Japan, it spreads to India,

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00:02:56,279 --> 00:02:57,936
and millions of people start dying.

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00:03:01,008 --> 00:03:03,942
At that time, there was still
a medieval sense of what

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00:03:03,976 --> 00:03:05,185
this disease was

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00:03:05,219 --> 00:03:06,807
and how it was spread.

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00:03:06,841 --> 00:03:10,466
Many people thought it was
"miasma"... bad air...

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00:03:10,500 --> 00:03:13,193
or it was simply a disease of filth.

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00:03:16,023 --> 00:03:18,439
Other people thought that
this is only a disease

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of rice eaters.

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00:03:27,759 --> 00:03:32,384
Racism
and ignorance were already in the air

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00:03:32,419 --> 00:03:36,043
as the bubonic plague made its
silent way across the Pacific.

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00:03:38,597 --> 00:03:43,395
It would arrive in North America
for the first time in history

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00:03:43,430 --> 00:03:48,883
where it would spark nationwide
terror, denial, and blame.

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Two men would try to stop it,

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struggling with not only
the scientific unknowns,

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00:03:58,168 --> 00:04:04,244
but unanticipated forces of
politics, commerce, and race.

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June 28, 1899:

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00:04:51,256 --> 00:04:55,225
in the cold morning fog,
a lone Italian crab fisherman

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00:04:55,260 --> 00:04:57,883
made an unsettling discovery.

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Two bodies were floating
face down in San Francisco Bay.

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00:05:08,791 --> 00:05:11,897
The previous morning,
the Japanese steamship

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the Nippon Maru had arrived
in San Francisco from Hong Kong,

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00:05:16,523 --> 00:05:20,734
stopping at Shanghai, Yokohama,
and then Honolulu.

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00:05:24,047 --> 00:05:28,293
Ominously, she flew a yellow flag:

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the international signal
indicating disease.

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00:05:36,439 --> 00:05:41,962
When the Nippon
Maru entered San Francisco Bay,

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00:05:41,996 --> 00:05:43,895
two stowaways,

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00:05:43,929 --> 00:05:46,967
who evidently were ill, jumped overboard

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into the bay waters.

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And when their bodies were recovered,

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the local doctors found them
to be suspicious.

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Unnerved by both their autopsy findings

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00:05:59,635 --> 00:06:03,017
and recent reports of plague in Asia,

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the city doctors immediately
sent their results

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00:06:05,503 --> 00:06:09,645
to Joseph Kinyoun, the nation's
foremost plague authority,

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00:06:09,679 --> 00:06:12,958
and the newly appointed head
of the Marine Hospital Service

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on nearby Angel Island.

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Angel Island in San Francisco Bay

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00:06:19,724 --> 00:06:22,899
had a quarantine station
where cargoes and passengers

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were checked for all kinds of
disease by the doctors

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00:06:26,731 --> 00:06:29,527
of the Marine Hospital Service.

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The Marine Hospital
Service had been established

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00:06:34,359 --> 00:06:37,569
30 years earlier to treat sick seamen.

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00:06:39,916 --> 00:06:43,333
But the idea of "public health"
had since evolved into a matter

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of national concern.

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The MHS was now charged with
fighting the spread of epidemics

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00:06:52,791 --> 00:06:56,416
using federal powers of
quarantine and surveillance.

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Their main responsibility
was protecting the people

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00:07:02,836 --> 00:07:04,769
of the United States

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00:07:04,803 --> 00:07:06,667
from the spread of disease
around the world.

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00:07:06,702 --> 00:07:09,394
So, there were Marine Hospital
Service officers stationed

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00:07:09,429 --> 00:07:11,845
in Rome, in London, in Asia.

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Just weeks into his posting,

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00:07:16,746 --> 00:07:20,854
Kinyoun knew better than anyone
that hospitals around the world

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00:07:20,888 --> 00:07:24,892
were reporting 90% death rates
from the plague.

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00:07:24,927 --> 00:07:27,999
And that millions had already
perished from a pandemic

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00:07:28,033 --> 00:07:33,349
that had been raging since the 1850s.

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Although no one knew why,

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rats and filth had long been
associated with plague.

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Kinyoun ordered the
Nippon Maru to be disinfected

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00:07:44,533 --> 00:07:47,501
and checked for vermin before
having all 55 passengers

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quarantined on Angel Island.

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Then he faced
the most critical step of all:

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determining how the men had died.

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Kinyoun suspected plague.

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00:08:08,004 --> 00:08:10,075
And there was a little rattle
in the papers.

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Well, Kinyoun thought the bodies
were too far gone.

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There wasn't definitive proof.

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So the press kind of backed away,

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Kinyoun backed away,
and everybody backed away.

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A positive diagnosis would be calamitous.

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But the condition of the tissue
samples and decomposed bodies

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made forensic confirmation impossible.

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Without scientific proof,
Kinyoun could not assert

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that plague had arrived.

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Yet his years of
rigorous training had taught him

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to remain alert.

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Joseph Kinyoun was a star.

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He was beautifully educated.

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He had studied with the best
scientists in the world

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to learn the state-of-the-art methods

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of diagnosing infectious diseases.

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00:09:32,848 --> 00:09:35,195
Then, at the age of 27,

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while he was at the
Hygienic Laboratory in New York,

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he diagnosed the first case

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of cholera with the new
bacteriologic tests

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in the Western Hemisphere.

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He was truly the elite
of American scientists.

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But Kinyoun's meteoric
rise was interrupted by personal tragedy.

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Joe and Elizabeth
Kinyoun's daughter died of diphtheria

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at the age of three.

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It's a terrible disease to die from,

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and it must be devastating for a parent.

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00:10:23,899 --> 00:10:26,315
Diphtheria at the time
was one of the most devastating

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childhood diseases.

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So, Kinyoun goes to Germany
to work with Robert Koch,

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who had discovered these cures
for diphtheria.

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And he can't believe his own eyes,

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seeing these kids recover as if by magic.

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And he can't help but believe

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that he's seeing his own daughter's face

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on all of these children.

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00:10:47,577 --> 00:10:49,890
And that really gives him
this idea that medicine

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can conquer anything.

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Kinyoun was fueled
by not just a new sense of purpose

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but of possibility.

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Joseph James Kinyoun,

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he was a very unique guy
from the day he set foot

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in the Marine Hospital Service.

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He was fascinated by technology.

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He taught himself photography
and radiology,

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which was a new technique around
the turn of the century.

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He was an inventor.

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00:11:22,785 --> 00:11:26,547
And he invented an enormous
number of machines and devices

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to steam sterilize, for example,
or chemically sterilize.

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Any new technique,
he was just in love with

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and he wanted to master it.

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He was an early adopter of ideas.

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The 39-year old scientist
had already proven himself a leader

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in the fledgling fields of microbiology

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and infectious diseases.

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Once in D.C., Kinyoun developed
the Hygienic Laboratory

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into a national state-of-the-art
research center,

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which supported the MHS
by identifying diseases

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and controlling epidemic outbreaks.

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Dr. Joseph Kinyoun
loved the National Hygienic Lab.

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00:12:15,286 --> 00:12:19,083
He and his young family loved
the finer East Coast living

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00:12:19,117 --> 00:12:23,087
and the cream of scientific
society in Washington D.C.

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00:12:26,297 --> 00:12:28,575
However, Walter Wyman,

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the surgeon general of the
Marine Hospital Service,

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his eye was on the West Coast,

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00:12:34,719 --> 00:12:35,962
where he feared plague would be entering

175
00:12:35,996 --> 00:12:39,310
and he transferred
the young Joseph Kinyoun

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to San Francisco to run the
Angel Island quarantine station.

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And, of course, Kinyoun was not
pleased about being dispatched

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to what he thought was this
frontier outpost.

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The MHS quarantine station on Angel Island

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00:13:00,331 --> 00:13:05,094
in the middle of San Francisco
Bay was a jumble of filthy

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00:13:05,129 --> 00:13:06,751
and neglected buildings.

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00:13:09,789 --> 00:13:12,584
Kinyoun now had to contend
with a workplace

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00:13:12,619 --> 00:13:16,416
that was completely unsuitable
to the urgent task at hand...

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protecting the nation
from a deadly epidemic.

185
00:13:23,941 --> 00:13:26,150
The Marine Hospital Service

186
00:13:26,184 --> 00:13:28,808
was a uniform branch
of the United States government.

187
00:13:28,842 --> 00:13:33,329
And Kinyoun himself,
he's a very military guy.

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He always followed orders,
and he did what he was told,

189
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and didn't complain about it.

190
00:13:37,886 --> 00:13:39,853
He was clearly the best man for the job.

191
00:13:39,888 --> 00:13:41,234
He probably knew that.

192
00:13:41,268 --> 00:13:45,410
So, as everything else,
he threw himself into it 100%.

193
00:13:48,586 --> 00:13:51,865
From the moment
Kinyoun assumed his post in California,

194
00:13:51,900 --> 00:13:56,490
he had been on high alert for plague.

195
00:13:56,525 --> 00:14:01,254
San Francisco was not only the
busiest port on the West Coast,

196
00:14:01,288 --> 00:14:05,051
but connected by rail
to the rest of the country.

197
00:14:05,085 --> 00:14:09,883
It was terrifyingly well-placed
to spread disease far and wide.

198
00:14:13,093 --> 00:14:16,856
To miss even a single diagnosis
could be cataclysmic.

199
00:14:21,550 --> 00:14:24,622
Joseph Kinyoun is really intent

200
00:14:24,656 --> 00:14:28,868
on checking every ship from Asia.

201
00:14:31,284 --> 00:14:36,013
Because after bubonic plague
emerges in Honolulu,

202
00:14:36,047 --> 00:14:39,223
and is discovered in the Chinese quarter,

203
00:14:39,257 --> 00:14:42,951
it becomes kind of a confirmation bias.

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00:14:42,985 --> 00:14:46,023
It was only going to affect
Chinese people.

205
00:14:46,057 --> 00:14:49,336
That one could contain it in some way.

206
00:14:49,371 --> 00:14:50,890
And that set up

207
00:14:50,924 --> 00:14:52,995
a terrible dynamic.

208
00:14:53,030 --> 00:14:56,723
It only percolated more fear,
more confusion,

209
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more misunderstanding.

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00:14:58,173 --> 00:15:03,523
And all eyes were targeted on
a Chinese source.

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As the 20th century dawned,

212
00:15:25,752 --> 00:15:28,065
everyone celebrated.

213
00:15:30,136 --> 00:15:34,519
And no place had more optimistic
swagger than San Francisco.

214
00:15:37,315 --> 00:15:40,249
It was home to one
out of every four people

215
00:15:40,284 --> 00:15:42,251
who lived west of the Rockies.

216
00:15:44,012 --> 00:15:46,566
A third of the nation's money
west of the Mississippi

217
00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:48,844
flowed through her banks.

218
00:15:48,878 --> 00:15:53,676
The city was a trading hub,
the portal to the east,

219
00:15:53,711 --> 00:15:56,990
and the diamond in the crown
of a state already rich

220
00:15:57,025 --> 00:15:58,958
with natural resources.

221
00:16:01,650 --> 00:16:04,964
It truly was the city of the future.

222
00:16:07,380 --> 00:16:10,348
As a Gold Rush boom town,

223
00:16:10,383 --> 00:16:13,489
San Francisco had new money.

224
00:16:13,524 --> 00:16:16,009
It had three opera houses,

225
00:16:16,044 --> 00:16:20,255
railroad and mining tycoons
living in palaces on Nob Hill,

226
00:16:20,289 --> 00:16:23,879
and a new cable car system.

227
00:16:25,639 --> 00:16:30,437
San Francisco in 1900 aspired to be

228
00:16:30,472 --> 00:16:32,784
the Paris of the Pacific coast.

229
00:16:37,237 --> 00:16:40,378
Nearly six percent
of the city's population lived in

230
00:16:40,413 --> 00:16:45,038
a 12-block district.

231
00:16:45,073 --> 00:16:49,042
Chinatown is home and it always will be.

232
00:16:49,077 --> 00:16:50,457
My mother was born in the year 1900

233
00:16:50,492 --> 00:16:53,805
in San Francisco's Chinatown.

234
00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:57,844
And she lived in Chinatown
throughout her entire life.

235
00:16:57,878 --> 00:17:00,433
Because they didn't have any choices.

236
00:17:00,467 --> 00:17:06,439
They were not permitted to move
outside of the neighborhood.

237
00:17:06,473 --> 00:17:09,718
Things were red lined,
there was discrimination,

238
00:17:09,752 --> 00:17:11,961
and people were very stereotyped.

239
00:17:15,172 --> 00:17:18,623
Chinatowns primarily
exist because Chinese weren't allowed

240
00:17:18,658 --> 00:17:22,110
to live in white neighborhoods
or any other neighborhood.

241
00:17:27,115 --> 00:17:30,014
They are what sociologists call
ethnic enclaves,

242
00:17:30,049 --> 00:17:33,397
where people like to live with
people who speak their language,

243
00:17:33,431 --> 00:17:37,884
or eat similar foods,
or practice the same religion.

244
00:17:37,918 --> 00:17:41,991
But they're also confining.

245
00:17:42,026 --> 00:17:47,204
So, Chinatowns are a combination
of ethnic solidarity

246
00:17:47,238 --> 00:17:50,724
and discrimination and exclusion.

247
00:17:59,008 --> 00:18:04,117
As the Year of the
Rat dawned on January 31, 1900,

248
00:18:04,152 --> 00:18:09,122
shop owners in Chinatown began
noticing a disturbing sight:

249
00:18:09,157 --> 00:18:10,813
rat carcasses littered

250
00:18:10,848 --> 00:18:12,781
the district's alleys and courtyards.

251
00:18:16,612 --> 00:18:20,202
And for 41-year-old Wong Chut King,

252
00:18:20,237 --> 00:18:23,447
something was definitely wrong.

253
00:18:23,481 --> 00:18:25,414
A worker in a nearby lumber yard,

254
00:18:25,449 --> 00:18:30,039
Wong lived in the Globe Hotel
on DuPont Avenue,

255
00:18:30,074 --> 00:18:32,490
the main artery of Chinatown.

256
00:18:38,738 --> 00:18:41,258
He shared one bed with two other men.

257
00:18:41,292 --> 00:18:45,331
They'd take turns sleeping.

258
00:18:45,365 --> 00:18:48,679
It was really a meager existence
of survival.

259
00:18:51,130 --> 00:18:54,098
He, like many people who came from China,

260
00:18:54,133 --> 00:18:55,272
expected their time

261
00:18:55,306 --> 00:18:57,619
in San Francisco to be short-lived.

262
00:18:57,653 --> 00:18:59,483
They come, they make a lot of money,

263
00:18:59,517 --> 00:19:02,796
then they go back home a wealthy man.

264
00:19:02,831 --> 00:19:05,627
That didn't play out
for almost all of them.

265
00:19:09,493 --> 00:19:12,427
For several weeks,
Wong Chut King struggled with

266
00:19:12,461 --> 00:19:15,464
mounting fever, exhaustion,

267
00:19:15,499 --> 00:19:18,433
and painfully swollen
lymph nodes, or "buboes."

268
00:19:20,883 --> 00:19:23,714
Because city hospitals
were closed to the Chinese,

269
00:19:23,748 --> 00:19:27,304
he sought traditional Chinese remedies,

270
00:19:27,338 --> 00:19:30,134
but nothing seemed to help.

271
00:19:30,169 --> 00:19:34,690
Eventually, he was too sick to move.

272
00:19:34,725 --> 00:19:35,967
His roommates,

273
00:19:36,002 --> 00:19:37,279
they see that he's dying.

274
00:19:37,314 --> 00:19:39,454
They take him to a local,
you know, what was called

275
00:19:39,488 --> 00:19:40,696
a Hall of Tranquility.

276
00:19:48,014 --> 00:19:52,052
The Chinese have a holistic view.

277
00:19:52,087 --> 00:19:56,540
They believe that when they die,

278
00:19:56,574 --> 00:20:01,614
their spirit needs to be tended to.

279
00:20:01,648 --> 00:20:04,651
And the remains

280
00:20:04,686 --> 00:20:07,758
had to be brought back
because of their view

281
00:20:07,792 --> 00:20:12,211
that the ancestors played
a great role in the afterlife.

282
00:20:15,904 --> 00:20:19,735
One of the sources of
mistrust between the community

283
00:20:19,770 --> 00:20:23,187
and Western doctors was
a very different view of

284
00:20:23,222 --> 00:20:25,948
life and death.

285
00:20:25,983 --> 00:20:31,747
The body should not be cut,
autopsies were anathema,

286
00:20:31,782 --> 00:20:35,648
one's soul had to return
to one's home village.

287
00:20:35,682 --> 00:20:37,719
So the Chinese were very careful.

288
00:20:40,756 --> 00:20:43,069
So, it was a quiet affair.

289
00:20:43,103 --> 00:20:46,072
And Wong Chut King died alone,

290
00:20:46,106 --> 00:20:48,971
on March 6, 1900.

291
00:21:00,328 --> 00:21:04,297
State law required a
physician to issue a death certificate

292
00:21:04,332 --> 00:21:08,197
so a health inspector was
summoned to examine the body.

293
00:21:10,407 --> 00:21:13,927
He notices a bubo
in, in Wong Chut King's groin

294
00:21:13,962 --> 00:21:16,965
and he jumps back because
he does know what this is.

295
00:21:16,999 --> 00:21:20,486
He knows it's a sign of bubonic plague.

296
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:22,246
So, he figures that,

297
00:21:22,281 --> 00:21:24,317
"I'm going to take a sample of this tissue

298
00:21:24,352 --> 00:21:26,250
"from Wong Chut King's body.

299
00:21:26,285 --> 00:21:29,529
"I'm going to run it over
to Kinyoun at Angel Island.

300
00:21:31,497 --> 00:21:33,430
"And I'm going to let him
make the decision

301
00:21:33,464 --> 00:21:35,328
of whether this is plague
or not."

302
00:21:37,986 --> 00:21:41,334
Kinyoun knew all about buboes,

303
00:21:41,369 --> 00:21:43,888
where the word "bubonic" comes from.

304
00:21:43,923 --> 00:21:48,652
The swollen lymph nodes were
an infamous sign of the plague.

305
00:21:48,686 --> 00:21:52,587
Yet he also knew that they
weren't enough for a diagnosis

306
00:21:52,621 --> 00:21:55,762
and he had to be 100% certain.

307
00:22:00,871 --> 00:22:04,530
To prove a plague death scientifically,

308
00:22:04,564 --> 00:22:07,533
you couldn't just do it by examining

309
00:22:07,567 --> 00:22:09,120
the live patient or the cadaver.

310
00:22:09,155 --> 00:22:11,847
You had to isolate the organism
from tissue.

311
00:22:14,022 --> 00:22:18,958
In 1900,
microbiology was still a fledgling field.

312
00:22:18,992 --> 00:22:21,029
And the idea that germs
could cause disease

313
00:22:21,063 --> 00:22:25,344
was not fully accepted,
even by many doctors.

314
00:22:25,378 --> 00:22:30,210
Kinyoun's superior,
Surgeon General Walter Wyman,

315
00:22:30,245 --> 00:22:32,903
had himself published a paper
on the plague that was full

316
00:22:32,937 --> 00:22:37,045
of speculations and misinformation:

317
00:22:37,079 --> 00:22:38,357
that the disease was spread

318
00:22:38,391 --> 00:22:42,740
by dust, tainted food,
and contaminated objects.

319
00:22:44,949 --> 00:22:47,642
Wyman also endorsed
racial theories of the time

320
00:22:47,676 --> 00:22:50,403
that the disease targeted Asians

321
00:22:50,438 --> 00:22:52,474
while sparing whites.

322
00:22:52,509 --> 00:22:54,683
Surgeon General Wyman, himself,

323
00:22:54,718 --> 00:22:56,858
said it was only a disease of rice eaters.

324
00:22:56,892 --> 00:22:59,723
If you ate a "muscular diet of meat,"

325
00:22:59,757 --> 00:23:01,449
you were somehow immune to it.

326
00:23:01,483 --> 00:23:07,144
Such ignorance was
widespread due in part to the fact

327
00:23:07,178 --> 00:23:09,595
that scientific confirmation
could take years.

328
00:23:13,426 --> 00:23:16,429
Nevertheless,
European scientists had recently

329
00:23:16,464 --> 00:23:18,949
identified the bubonic plague bacteria

330
00:23:18,983 --> 00:23:22,228
using a test called Gram's stain.

331
00:23:25,127 --> 00:23:30,339
Bubonic plague is
transmitted by a bacteria called

332
00:23:30,374 --> 00:23:32,997
Yersinia pestis.

333
00:23:33,032 --> 00:23:38,520
And Gram stains are used
under the microscope to enhance

334
00:23:38,555 --> 00:23:40,591
the difference in colors.

335
00:23:40,626 --> 00:23:45,493
So, you can see the bacteria in
what we call a smear on a slide.

336
00:23:47,978 --> 00:23:50,877
And Yersinia pestis stains pink.

337
00:23:57,366 --> 00:24:00,749
As the first
American to have studied the bacilli,

338
00:24:00,784 --> 00:24:03,580
Kinyoun was unquestionably
the most qualified scientist

339
00:24:03,614 --> 00:24:05,789
in the country to test for plague.

340
00:24:08,377 --> 00:24:10,552
Hours after Wong's death,

341
00:24:10,587 --> 00:24:13,521
he undertook the exacting forensic work,

342
00:24:13,555 --> 00:24:16,213
using the sample taken from the body.

343
00:24:18,215 --> 00:24:21,287
Isolate the germ in biopsy,

344
00:24:21,321 --> 00:24:24,497
test it with the Gram stain.

345
00:24:27,638 --> 00:24:31,539
Put it under a microscope...

346
00:24:35,508 --> 00:24:40,099
And look for the distinctive
pink rod-shaped bacilli

347
00:24:40,133 --> 00:24:43,447
with rounded tips.

348
00:24:43,482 --> 00:24:45,622
And that was the classic
signature of plague.

349
00:24:50,696 --> 00:24:53,146
Yet the presence of
the telltale marker alone wasn't enough

350
00:24:53,181 --> 00:24:56,149
to confirm a diagnosis.

351
00:24:58,427 --> 00:25:01,016
Kinyoun would have to grow
the culture in his lab,

352
00:25:01,051 --> 00:25:03,398
which would take time,

353
00:25:03,432 --> 00:25:06,125
and there was none to spare.

354
00:25:08,679 --> 00:25:10,923
For he couldn't help but wonder:

355
00:25:10,957 --> 00:25:15,755
how many others might be infected?

356
00:25:23,142 --> 00:25:25,109
Across San Francisco Bay,

357
00:25:25,144 --> 00:25:28,803
the city board of health
was too spooked to wait.

358
00:25:28,837 --> 00:25:32,772
To them, it was clearly
a "Chinese problem,"

359
00:25:32,807 --> 00:25:36,535
confined to Chinatown.

360
00:25:36,569 --> 00:25:39,261
So they decided to
control matters by quarantining

361
00:25:39,296 --> 00:25:42,748
the entire district.

362
00:25:42,782 --> 00:25:46,199
One day after Wong Chut King's death,

363
00:25:46,234 --> 00:25:49,064
the Chinese community awoke
to find ropes cordoning off

364
00:25:49,099 --> 00:25:50,825
their 12-block district.

365
00:25:52,930 --> 00:25:55,657
Overnight, 20,000 people...

366
00:25:55,692 --> 00:25:58,453
nearly all of the city's Asians...

367
00:25:58,487 --> 00:26:03,113
found themselves virtual prisoners.

368
00:26:03,147 --> 00:26:05,115
What was unusual

369
00:26:05,149 --> 00:26:07,427
was that it didn't apply
to this one particular house

370
00:26:07,462 --> 00:26:10,776
where the man was found, but applied to

371
00:26:10,810 --> 00:26:12,571
the whole Chinese quarter,

372
00:26:12,605 --> 00:26:16,851
sealing off a whole area of a city.

373
00:26:19,888 --> 00:26:22,201
There was this kind of idea that

374
00:26:22,235 --> 00:26:24,893
the Chinese carry
a particular virulent form

375
00:26:24,928 --> 00:26:26,170
of some kind of disease,

376
00:26:26,205 --> 00:26:31,831
whether it was smallpox,
or syphilis, or bubonic plague.

377
00:26:31,866 --> 00:26:36,077
And that the disease is endemic
to their bodies,

378
00:26:36,111 --> 00:26:39,149
that it would be possible to infect

379
00:26:39,183 --> 00:26:41,323
innocent middle-class white people.

380
00:26:43,429 --> 00:26:46,052
There was definitely
this view that Asians were

381
00:26:46,087 --> 00:26:51,437
more susceptible to the disease
as opposed to whites.

382
00:26:51,471 --> 00:26:54,820
And this was a widely shared
view at the time.

383
00:26:57,926 --> 00:27:00,998
The residents of
Chinatown were really stuck.

384
00:27:01,033 --> 00:27:03,000
They weren't allowed to be citizens.

385
00:27:03,035 --> 00:27:04,243
They weren't allowed to own property.

386
00:27:04,277 --> 00:27:06,763
They weren't allowed
many fundamental rights.

387
00:27:09,317 --> 00:27:13,908
In 1900, anti-Chinese
sentiment wasn't isolated...

388
00:27:13,942 --> 00:27:17,325
it was codified by federal law.

389
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:22,123
The Chinese Exclusion Act
of 1882 prohibited all Chinese

390
00:27:22,157 --> 00:27:23,987
from citizenship,

391
00:27:24,021 --> 00:27:28,957
essentially relegating them
to the margins of society.

392
00:27:31,166 --> 00:27:34,273
The Chinese were already not seen as human

393
00:27:34,307 --> 00:27:37,448
before the Chinese Exclusion Act,

394
00:27:37,483 --> 00:27:39,692
which is why the act passed.

395
00:27:41,452 --> 00:27:43,592
The only time in our history
that we specifically named

396
00:27:43,627 --> 00:27:46,941
an ethnicity to say they can't
come to the United States;

397
00:27:46,975 --> 00:27:49,978
they don't belong,
they're too different than us.

398
00:27:54,293 --> 00:27:58,918
The building of
the transcontinental railroad

399
00:27:58,953 --> 00:28:00,920
required tons of hard labor,

400
00:28:00,955 --> 00:28:04,372
which Chinese workers had taken on.

401
00:28:06,270 --> 00:28:09,342
Once that final golden spike was driven,

402
00:28:09,377 --> 00:28:11,103
the welcome mat was withdrawn.

403
00:28:11,137 --> 00:28:18,973
And the once-essential
Chinese workers were regarded as

404
00:28:19,007 --> 00:28:21,423
a surplus that would cut into
demand for white labor.

405
00:28:21,458 --> 00:28:24,392
So, the white labor movement
was very hostile.

406
00:28:29,362 --> 00:28:31,848
Almost 20 years have
gone by since the Exclusion Act.

407
00:28:31,882 --> 00:28:36,300
And this has been a very
tumultuous number of decades

408
00:28:36,335 --> 00:28:39,545
where the government tries
to take this right away,

409
00:28:39,579 --> 00:28:41,961
impose that discriminatory law,

410
00:28:41,996 --> 00:28:44,688
to try to drive people away.

411
00:28:47,070 --> 00:28:50,176
The Chinese community
saw the cordon for what it was:

412
00:28:50,211 --> 00:28:54,042
the latest unjust action
taken against them

413
00:28:54,077 --> 00:28:58,081
based on flimsy evidence
and a convenient excuse.

414
00:29:00,428 --> 00:29:03,293
The populace was
violently opposed to being sealed

415
00:29:03,327 --> 00:29:05,019
inside Chinatown.

416
00:29:05,053 --> 00:29:08,332
Many people worked outside the district.

417
00:29:08,367 --> 00:29:10,783
They had jobs to get to.

418
00:29:10,818 --> 00:29:12,785
And interestingly,

419
00:29:12,820 --> 00:29:15,581
the white community,

420
00:29:15,615 --> 00:29:17,928
while not so sympathetic

421
00:29:17,963 --> 00:29:21,035
to the viewpoint of the people
in Chinatown,

422
00:29:21,069 --> 00:29:25,349
wanted their cooks and gardeners
and domestic back on the job.

423
00:29:25,384 --> 00:29:29,906
And so all sides were at war.

424
00:29:29,940 --> 00:29:33,806
And by March 10, the ropes came down.

425
00:29:33,841 --> 00:29:38,086
So, the first quarantine of Chinatown,

426
00:29:38,121 --> 00:29:39,778
it didn't last very long...

427
00:29:39,812 --> 00:29:43,264
only three days.

428
00:29:43,298 --> 00:29:46,198
Because the
quarantine came down so quickly,

429
00:29:46,232 --> 00:29:50,409
many people in San Francisco
thought it was just all a sham.

430
00:29:50,443 --> 00:29:52,376
It almost eroded public trust immediately.

431
00:29:52,411 --> 00:29:57,036
In the face of such apparent incompetence,

432
00:29:57,071 --> 00:30:00,177
the city's response was one of relief...

433
00:30:00,212 --> 00:30:04,492
and amused contempt.

434
00:30:04,526 --> 00:30:07,495
One of the papers
celebrated the end of the first quarantine

435
00:30:07,529 --> 00:30:10,739
by writing a silly poem,

436
00:30:10,774 --> 00:30:14,398
"Sweet Fong is at his post once more

437
00:30:14,433 --> 00:30:17,850
and cooking reigns supreme."

438
00:30:17,885 --> 00:30:21,647
Because the people had gotten
their domestic servants back.

439
00:30:23,580 --> 00:30:26,583
It was that kind of racial supremacy

440
00:30:26,617 --> 00:30:29,828
emanating from every corner of the city.

441
00:30:33,901 --> 00:30:36,351
Alone in his lab on Angel Island,

442
00:30:36,386 --> 00:30:39,354
Kinyoun had managed to successfully grow

443
00:30:39,389 --> 00:30:42,599
the microorganism within 48 hours.

444
00:30:42,633 --> 00:30:47,466
But the next step... injecting it
into a healthy animal

445
00:30:47,500 --> 00:30:52,609
to see what would happen...
would take days.

446
00:30:52,643 --> 00:30:56,509
Once again,
Kinyoun took extra precautions,

447
00:30:56,544 --> 00:31:02,067
choosing to inoculate not one
but four lab animals:

448
00:31:02,101 --> 00:31:06,209
two guinea pigs, a rat, and a monkey.

449
00:31:09,212 --> 00:31:11,800
Three of the animals died pretty quickly.

450
00:31:13,561 --> 00:31:18,600
The last one, the monkey,
was the one he was hoping on.

451
00:31:18,635 --> 00:31:24,813
If it didn't die, then maybe
it's not the plague.

452
00:31:24,848 --> 00:31:26,194
Well, it died.

453
00:31:28,645 --> 00:31:34,582
On March 13, seven
days after Wong Chut King passed away,

454
00:31:34,616 --> 00:31:38,172
Kinyoun was finally able
to confirm the cause of death.

455
00:31:41,244 --> 00:31:44,488
Wong became the first
diagnosed case of bubonic plague

456
00:31:44,523 --> 00:31:46,318
in the United States.

457
00:31:48,837 --> 00:31:52,358
But Kinyoun feared
he would not be the last.

458
00:32:02,265 --> 00:32:03,956
Kinyoun immediately sends

459
00:32:03,991 --> 00:32:05,026
a coded telegram to D.C.

460
00:32:05,061 --> 00:32:07,442
"Bumpkin confirmed."

461
00:32:07,477 --> 00:32:10,100
And that was the code word
that plague is here.

462
00:32:13,448 --> 00:32:17,245
Kinyoun's boss Walter
Wyman had every reason to believe

463
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:19,799
that if it got out of
San Francisco, it would

464
00:32:19,834 --> 00:32:23,700
go over the whole country and
countless deaths would occur.

465
00:32:25,736 --> 00:32:27,946
So, the people in Washington
were just alarmed,

466
00:32:27,980 --> 00:32:30,776
and their point of view is,
"We don't care what you do.

467
00:32:30,810 --> 00:32:32,122
"If you have to burn the place down,

468
00:32:32,157 --> 00:32:34,780
"just make sure that you contain
this epidemic.

469
00:32:34,814 --> 00:32:35,815
It's a national emergency."

470
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:46,205
As federal officials frantically
tried to coordinate a response,

471
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:48,483
word of Kinyoun's diagnosis spread quickly

472
00:32:48,518 --> 00:32:52,004
among San Francisco's leaders.

473
00:32:52,039 --> 00:32:54,489
Yet powerful merchants and politicians

474
00:32:54,524 --> 00:33:00,185
like Mayor James Phelan
refused to accept his findings.

475
00:33:03,498 --> 00:33:05,984
Shipping exchanges around the world

476
00:33:06,018 --> 00:33:08,158
was very, very important

477
00:33:08,193 --> 00:33:10,540
source of income.

478
00:33:10,574 --> 00:33:13,370
So, if there was plague in San Francisco,

479
00:33:13,405 --> 00:33:15,924
it would be blocked,

480
00:33:15,959 --> 00:33:19,031
it would no longer be open.

481
00:33:19,066 --> 00:33:23,311
So industries were at stake.

482
00:33:24,864 --> 00:33:27,557
Mayor Phelan was very
concerned that if word got around

483
00:33:27,591 --> 00:33:29,524
that San Francisco

484
00:33:29,559 --> 00:33:32,907
had cases of plague that the
city's commerce would be dealt

485
00:33:32,941 --> 00:33:36,635
a really serious blow.

486
00:33:36,669 --> 00:33:39,672
City leaders were used to autonomy,

487
00:33:39,707 --> 00:33:42,848
and didn't like being told what to do,

488
00:33:42,882 --> 00:33:47,232
especially by authorities
at the federal level.

489
00:33:48,785 --> 00:33:54,101
With the Marine Hospital
Service, the federal government,

490
00:33:54,135 --> 00:33:57,414
they were now centrally becoming
involved in public health

491
00:33:57,449 --> 00:33:59,347
across the United States.

492
00:33:59,382 --> 00:34:05,664
And they felt they had supreme authority.

493
00:34:05,698 --> 00:34:10,565
But the city government,
the merchant elite

494
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:15,674
was saying to them, "We have
jurisdiction in San Francisco."

495
00:34:15,708 --> 00:34:17,883
And then there were state officials

496
00:34:17,917 --> 00:34:21,162
and the governor who thought,

497
00:34:21,197 --> 00:34:23,578
"Well, we have authority over
all of California."

498
00:34:23,613 --> 00:34:26,478
And it becomes a question immediately

499
00:34:26,512 --> 00:34:27,927
of who has authority.

500
00:34:27,962 --> 00:34:30,137
If there is an outbreak, is this
a federal responsibility?

501
00:34:30,171 --> 00:34:32,553
Or is this the city, or is it the state?

502
00:34:35,314 --> 00:34:38,317
Most San Franciscans didn't care.

503
00:34:38,352 --> 00:34:40,112
They couldn't be bothered with the death

504
00:34:40,147 --> 00:34:43,219
of a faceless stranger in Chinatown,

505
00:34:43,253 --> 00:34:48,741
especially given widespread
beliefs that whites were immune.

506
00:34:48,776 --> 00:34:50,260
As for city leaders,

507
00:34:50,295 --> 00:34:53,574
while they refused to accept
Kinyoun's diagnosis,

508
00:34:53,608 --> 00:34:57,474
they did agree that what they
called the "Chinese problem"

509
00:34:57,509 --> 00:35:01,720
needed to be contained.

510
00:35:01,754 --> 00:35:05,137
They didn't really
understand how the bubonic plague

511
00:35:05,172 --> 00:35:06,932
was transmitted to people.

512
00:35:06,966 --> 00:35:08,899
But they knew if it occurred in

513
00:35:08,934 --> 00:35:12,179
a city it would be in one area.

514
00:35:12,213 --> 00:35:14,457
And so, the public health
approach was to find the focus

515
00:35:14,491 --> 00:35:17,356
and go in there and do whatever you could

516
00:35:17,391 --> 00:35:20,118
to get rid of the disease.

517
00:35:20,152 --> 00:35:22,637
The moment Mayor Phelan declared

518
00:35:22,672 --> 00:35:25,295
"Asiatic infections are a constant menace

519
00:35:25,330 --> 00:35:28,643
to San Francisco's public health,"

520
00:35:28,678 --> 00:35:33,476
75 health inspectors
and dozens of policemen,

521
00:35:33,510 --> 00:35:37,100
armed with sledgehammers and axes,

522
00:35:37,135 --> 00:35:41,691
descended on an unsuspecting Chinatown.

523
00:35:41,725 --> 00:35:47,766
They smashed down doors,
ransacked homes, stole brazenly,

524
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:51,563
and beat anyone who stood up to them.

525
00:35:53,323 --> 00:35:57,396
They were subjected
to plague measures, which included

526
00:35:57,431 --> 00:36:00,261
torching of belongings,
they would bring in

527
00:36:00,296 --> 00:36:03,851
smudge pots of sulfur,
and fumigate a building.

528
00:36:03,885 --> 00:36:07,648
If you were a merchant selling
fine silks or ceramics,

529
00:36:07,682 --> 00:36:10,375
it would spoil your goods.

530
00:36:10,409 --> 00:36:13,585
So, these measures, which were
crude and discriminatory

531
00:36:13,619 --> 00:36:15,449
and not very effective,

532
00:36:15,483 --> 00:36:16,829
frightened the populace.

533
00:36:16,864 --> 00:36:18,245
People were not eager to report

534
00:36:18,279 --> 00:36:20,074
a case of sickness in their home.

535
00:36:23,871 --> 00:36:28,151
In 1900,
at the time of the bubonic plague,

536
00:36:28,186 --> 00:36:31,189
my great-grandfather had a business called

537
00:36:31,223 --> 00:36:33,881
the Pacific Fruit Packing Company.

538
00:36:33,915 --> 00:36:37,471
And my family lived above the cannery

539
00:36:37,505 --> 00:36:40,888
on Stockton Street in Chinatown.

540
00:36:40,922 --> 00:36:42,303
They went to church

541
00:36:42,338 --> 00:36:45,582
where Ng Poon Chew
was the assistant pastor.

542
00:36:45,617 --> 00:36:47,550
And that's how when he started
a newspaper,

543
00:36:47,584 --> 00:36:50,035
my great-grandfather helped him fund

544
00:36:50,069 --> 00:36:51,485
the "Chung Sai Yat Po."

545
00:36:53,487 --> 00:36:57,249
And in Chinatown, they would
post some of the newspapers

546
00:36:57,284 --> 00:36:59,251
on the walls.

547
00:36:59,286 --> 00:37:03,359
So the Chinese knew exactly
what was going on.

548
00:37:06,465 --> 00:37:13,231
Ng Poon Chew and his
newspaper documented what the deeply felt

549
00:37:13,265 --> 00:37:16,268
fears and concerns were
of Chinese laborers,

550
00:37:16,303 --> 00:37:19,651
how they distrusted
Western medical authority,

551
00:37:19,685 --> 00:37:22,136
how they feared
what was going to happen to them

552
00:37:22,170 --> 00:37:26,347
from a Chinese perspective.

553
00:37:26,382 --> 00:37:30,731
"Alas, why should
Chinatown's good name depend on

554
00:37:30,765 --> 00:37:34,838
"the life and death of a monkey?

555
00:37:34,873 --> 00:37:36,909
"We don't know whether they are
rooting for Chinatown

556
00:37:36,944 --> 00:37:39,878
or the monkey."

557
00:37:39,912 --> 00:37:41,845
"Chung Sai Yat Po Daily."

558
00:37:48,921 --> 00:37:52,718
Nine days after Wong Chut King's death,

559
00:37:52,753 --> 00:37:56,170
Kinyoun confirmed three more cases...

560
00:37:56,204 --> 00:37:58,103
all within Chinatown.

561
00:38:01,348 --> 00:38:04,420
Kinyoun had feared
such an outbreak all along,

562
00:38:04,454 --> 00:38:07,526
knowing that even a handful of cases

563
00:38:07,561 --> 00:38:09,010
could explode exponentially

564
00:38:09,045 --> 00:38:12,669
into a national epidemic within weeks.

565
00:38:13,981 --> 00:38:16,328
The urgency of the situation
caught the eye

566
00:38:16,363 --> 00:38:19,918
of newspaper magnate
William Randolph Hearst.

567
00:38:19,952 --> 00:38:24,371
On March 18, his paper,
"The New York Journal,"

568
00:38:24,405 --> 00:38:26,925
published a special national edition

569
00:38:26,959 --> 00:38:31,309
trumpeting the sensational story
from California.

570
00:38:32,689 --> 00:38:35,589
Pressured by commercial stakeholders,

571
00:38:35,623 --> 00:38:38,868
San Francisco's leaders quickly responded,

572
00:38:38,902 --> 00:38:41,871
enlisting the editors
of leading newspapers to dismiss

573
00:38:41,905 --> 00:38:47,014
what they now called "rumors."

574
00:38:47,048 --> 00:38:48,912
City Hall and all
of San Francisco's elite,

575
00:38:48,947 --> 00:38:50,983
they had the same idea in mind,

576
00:38:51,018 --> 00:38:55,436
"We're not going to report
any news of the plague."

577
00:38:57,611 --> 00:38:59,785
You have the "Chronicle" saying,

578
00:38:59,820 --> 00:39:01,373
"We're gonna write an editorial

579
00:39:01,408 --> 00:39:03,237
"saying that Kinyoun or anybody else from

580
00:39:03,271 --> 00:39:04,894
"Marine Hospital Service
is just trying to pick

581
00:39:04,928 --> 00:39:08,104
San Francisco's pocket."

582
00:39:08,138 --> 00:39:12,108
Dr. Joseph Kinyoun was a proud man.

583
00:39:12,142 --> 00:39:14,731
He regarded the tools of science,

584
00:39:14,766 --> 00:39:19,011
the enlightenment
of his technology, as a gift.

585
00:39:19,046 --> 00:39:21,807
And he expected, quite rightly,

586
00:39:21,842 --> 00:39:24,741
some deference and respect for
what he brought to the city.

587
00:39:24,776 --> 00:39:26,778
And he got none of it.

588
00:39:26,812 --> 00:39:33,060
Because from the moment that
Joseph Kinyoun diagnosed plague

589
00:39:33,094 --> 00:39:36,339
in the glands of Wong Chut King,
science was on trial.

590
00:39:40,447 --> 00:39:43,346
And Bubonic plague was called
"Kinyoun's fake."

591
00:39:58,706 --> 00:40:01,744
As the media storm swirled around him,

592
00:40:01,778 --> 00:40:03,124
a frantic Kinyoun

593
00:40:03,159 --> 00:40:07,232
tried to retrace the last days
of each victim's life

594
00:40:07,266 --> 00:40:10,062
in a desperate attempt
to determine who or where

595
00:40:10,097 --> 00:40:11,892
the next might be.

596
00:40:15,378 --> 00:40:17,863
What made Kinyoun
so terrified when he started

597
00:40:17,898 --> 00:40:19,486
identifying the disease,

598
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:22,454
was he found one victim and he
could not find any connections

599
00:40:22,489 --> 00:40:23,800
to the next victim.

600
00:40:27,390 --> 00:40:28,874
It's almost like
you're looking at the ocean,

601
00:40:28,909 --> 00:40:33,154
and you can't see it, but you
know something is down there.

602
00:40:33,189 --> 00:40:36,986
And he had no idea what it was.

603
00:40:37,020 --> 00:40:38,712
It was a mystery.

604
00:40:38,746 --> 00:40:41,231
There was a kind of creeping pace.

605
00:40:41,266 --> 00:40:44,890
There would be a case or two,
and then it would pause.

606
00:40:44,925 --> 00:40:49,757
Kinyoun tried to puzzle it out.

607
00:40:49,792 --> 00:40:53,796
He was looking for other cases of plague.

608
00:40:53,830 --> 00:40:58,559
He also knew that because of the
way Chinatown was being treated

609
00:40:58,594 --> 00:41:01,631
by local officials, they might hide cases.

610
00:41:04,462 --> 00:41:10,916
"Suspicions everywhere
and every shadow becomes an enemy."

611
00:41:10,951 --> 00:41:12,953
"Chung Sai Yat Po Daily."

612
00:41:15,334 --> 00:41:20,547
A plague death would
require autopsy to confirm the case.

613
00:41:20,581 --> 00:41:23,584
It was an offense in the culture.

614
00:41:23,619 --> 00:41:27,519
So no one was eager to call in
the scientists.

615
00:41:29,590 --> 00:41:31,385
And it becomes a cat and mouse game.

616
00:41:31,419 --> 00:41:34,526
And people keep on questioning him.

617
00:41:34,561 --> 00:41:36,770
If the plague is as scary
as you're saying it is,

618
00:41:36,804 --> 00:41:38,944
there should be bodies everywhere.

619
00:41:38,979 --> 00:41:40,981
We should also see living victims

620
00:41:41,015 --> 00:41:42,292
who are struggling with this.

621
00:41:46,262 --> 00:41:47,539
People thought,

622
00:41:47,574 --> 00:41:48,609
"Well, if the plague existed,

623
00:41:48,644 --> 00:41:50,887
"it should be spreading like wildfire.

624
00:41:50,922 --> 00:41:56,548
Why aren't hundreds of people
infected with it?"

625
00:41:56,583 --> 00:42:01,622
And it obviously made things
difficult for Kinyoun,

626
00:42:01,657 --> 00:42:03,210
because in the face of
pretty clear evidence,

627
00:42:03,244 --> 00:42:05,799
people denied that the plague
existed at all.

628
00:42:10,424 --> 00:42:12,564
When three more people died in mid-May,

629
00:42:12,599 --> 00:42:17,327
Kinyoun telegrammed Wyman urging
a bold and unprecedented plan.

630
00:42:21,124 --> 00:42:23,782
He proposed vaccinating
every Chinatown resident

631
00:42:23,817 --> 00:42:29,132
with the recently developed
Haffkine vaccine.

632
00:42:29,167 --> 00:42:34,517
In 1900, vaccination was still
a frightening concept to most.

633
00:42:34,552 --> 00:42:38,176
But in Chinatown, the proposal
was further complicated

634
00:42:38,210 --> 00:42:41,766
by the dark racial dynamics of the time.

635
00:42:44,354 --> 00:42:46,978
There'd been a
long history of white people,

636
00:42:47,012 --> 00:42:48,186
European-descended people,

637
00:42:48,220 --> 00:42:51,120
treating the Chinese
in San Francisco badly.

638
00:42:51,154 --> 00:42:54,054
So, the rational expectation
was, you know,

639
00:42:54,088 --> 00:42:55,814
if the white power structure
wants this done,

640
00:42:55,849 --> 00:42:57,195
there's gotta be something wrong with it.

641
00:42:59,438 --> 00:43:02,027
The Chinese relationship
with city health authorities,

642
00:43:02,062 --> 00:43:04,996
there was nothing positive about it.

643
00:43:05,030 --> 00:43:08,171
There was a history of malignant neglect.

644
00:43:08,206 --> 00:43:12,486
Chinese were routinely refused
treatment at city hospitals.

645
00:43:14,143 --> 00:43:18,630
It was only that year that
a Chinese clinic was allowed

646
00:43:18,665 --> 00:43:23,255
to open in Chinatown
called the Tung Wah Dispensary.

647
00:43:23,290 --> 00:43:25,257
So Chinese had absolutely no trust

648
00:43:25,292 --> 00:43:28,606
in city health authorities.

649
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:30,642
Also, they weren't vaccinating
white people.

650
00:43:30,677 --> 00:43:34,853
So it seemed to be targeted at them.

651
00:43:34,888 --> 00:43:39,893
The Haffkine was largely untested.

652
00:43:39,927 --> 00:43:43,172
Existing data showed only
a 50% protection rate.

653
00:43:45,899 --> 00:43:48,660
Furthermore, the drug's
purported side effects

654
00:43:48,695 --> 00:43:51,870
were so notorious that a
headline-hungry reporter

655
00:43:51,905 --> 00:43:53,320
from a Hearst newspaper

656
00:43:53,354 --> 00:43:56,564
volunteered to be injected himself.

657
00:44:02,778 --> 00:44:05,919
"Within two hours, the serum had spread

658
00:44:05,953 --> 00:44:10,337
"through my system and
its effects began to be felt.

659
00:44:10,371 --> 00:44:15,273
"Shooting pains extended
through the chest, down the arm,

660
00:44:15,307 --> 00:44:18,863
"and even into my neck and head.

661
00:44:18,897 --> 00:44:21,003
"My left arm felt numb.

662
00:44:21,037 --> 00:44:27,250
The pain in my shoulder, chest,
neck, and arm was quite severe."

663
00:44:31,220 --> 00:44:34,499
Out of thousands
of Chinese living in San Francisco,

664
00:44:34,533 --> 00:44:39,366
only 53 were willing to be vaccinated.

665
00:44:41,713 --> 00:44:45,234
Growing desperate,
Kinyoun telegrammed Wyman.

666
00:44:47,443 --> 00:44:50,929
Regard situation very serious.

667
00:44:50,964 --> 00:44:56,314
Will require almost superhuman
efforts to control now.

668
00:44:56,348 --> 00:44:59,317
So much time has been lost.

669
00:45:01,975 --> 00:45:04,909
And that's when Marine Hospital Service

670
00:45:04,943 --> 00:45:07,497
had to make its first authoritative

671
00:45:07,532 --> 00:45:09,707
stand against plague.

672
00:45:12,537 --> 00:45:17,059
Surgeon General Wyman
telegraphs Kinyoun immediately, saying,

673
00:45:17,093 --> 00:45:20,200
"You are our man in San Francisco.

674
00:45:20,234 --> 00:45:21,442
"It all depends on you.

675
00:45:21,477 --> 00:45:24,480
You know,
you have to protect us all."

676
00:45:24,514 --> 00:45:28,070
Now charged with
overseeing the entire West Coast,

677
00:45:28,104 --> 00:45:31,452
Kinyoun quickly hired additional officers,

678
00:45:31,487 --> 00:45:34,628
whom he dispatched across
California and Oregon

679
00:45:34,662 --> 00:45:37,320
to beef up inspection and patrols.

680
00:45:40,047 --> 00:45:43,361
He also made vaccination mandatory,

681
00:45:43,395 --> 00:45:46,778
and took exclusive aim
at not just the Chinese,

682
00:45:46,813 --> 00:45:50,092
but Japanese with
an unheard-of travel ban.

683
00:45:54,613 --> 00:45:58,272
On May the 18th, the
Board of Health of San Francisco

684
00:45:58,307 --> 00:46:01,551
passes a resolution to order
the transport companies

685
00:46:01,586 --> 00:46:04,658
to refuse transportation
to Chinese and Japanese

686
00:46:04,692 --> 00:46:07,005
without the certificate
that said that the person

687
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:12,079
had been inoculated
with this Haffkine's vaccine.

688
00:46:12,114 --> 00:46:14,219
And it's quite clear
that they have endorsed

689
00:46:14,254 --> 00:46:17,291
the recommendations
that have been passed onto them

690
00:46:17,326 --> 00:46:19,777
by Kinyoun.

691
00:46:19,811 --> 00:46:23,194
So now the Chinese and Japanese
are being told,

692
00:46:23,228 --> 00:46:25,092
"Do it, or you're confined
to San Francisco.

693
00:46:25,127 --> 00:46:28,199
You won't be able to leave."

694
00:46:28,233 --> 00:46:30,477
It was being pushed on them coercively.

695
00:46:34,377 --> 00:46:36,897
"The doctors are
about to compel our Chinese people

696
00:46:36,932 --> 00:46:39,382
"to be inoculated.

697
00:46:39,417 --> 00:46:45,941
"Tomorrow, all business houses
large or small must be closed

698
00:46:45,975 --> 00:46:50,946
and wait until this unjust
action is settled."

699
00:46:50,980 --> 00:46:54,294
"Chung Sai Yat Po Daily."

700
00:46:54,328 --> 00:46:57,780
Its back to the wall, a defiant Chinatown

701
00:46:57,815 --> 00:46:59,575
turned to its own leaders:

702
00:46:59,609 --> 00:47:03,027
a consortium of
district associations called

703
00:47:03,061 --> 00:47:07,272
the Chinese Six Companies.

704
00:47:07,307 --> 00:47:10,344
The leaders of the Six
Companies were the biggest merchants

705
00:47:10,379 --> 00:47:12,622
in Chinatown,

706
00:47:12,657 --> 00:47:15,004
the most influential members

707
00:47:15,039 --> 00:47:16,868
of their associations.

708
00:47:16,903 --> 00:47:18,387
Any dispute with the city government

709
00:47:18,421 --> 00:47:21,839
or the state government, Chinese
would send their representatives

710
00:47:21,873 --> 00:47:26,188
to negotiate or to protest.

711
00:47:26,222 --> 00:47:29,674
The Chinese leaders
met with Kinyoun at the consulate

712
00:47:29,708 --> 00:47:33,298
and implored him to call off his plans.

713
00:47:33,333 --> 00:47:37,337
When he refused, the Chinese
felt they had no option left

714
00:47:37,371 --> 00:47:39,580
but to take to the streets.

715
00:47:39,615 --> 00:47:43,584
From the most powerful merchant
to the lowliest worker,

716
00:47:43,619 --> 00:47:46,070
all of Chinatown took immediate action

717
00:47:46,104 --> 00:47:49,901
to protest Kinyoun's orders.

718
00:47:53,111 --> 00:47:55,182
There were riots.

719
00:47:55,217 --> 00:47:58,945
A thousand Chinese protesters
descended on Portsmouth Square

720
00:47:58,979 --> 00:48:02,224
in Chinatown where federal
doctors had set up tents

721
00:48:02,258 --> 00:48:03,604
to vaccinate people.

722
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:09,714
And they pulled cobblestones
out of the streets

723
00:48:09,748 --> 00:48:11,647
and threw them in shop windows,

724
00:48:11,681 --> 00:48:13,925
pitching furniture into the street.

725
00:48:17,964 --> 00:48:19,344
They stood up to him, and they said,

726
00:48:19,379 --> 00:48:21,691
"We are not standing for
these measures."

727
00:48:24,246 --> 00:48:26,593
It was so terrible that

728
00:48:26,627 --> 00:48:28,353
a hundred police had to protect Kinyoun

729
00:48:28,388 --> 00:48:32,323
because the San Francisco mobs
would have killed him.

730
00:48:38,674 --> 00:48:43,127
The Chinese in San
Francisco are beleaguered,

731
00:48:43,161 --> 00:48:46,613
but they also have fought every
inch of the way

732
00:48:46,647 --> 00:48:50,928
with legal cases that are brought by

733
00:48:50,962 --> 00:48:52,101
the leadership of the community,

734
00:48:52,136 --> 00:48:53,413
the merchant leaders,

735
00:48:53,447 --> 00:48:58,073
sometimes together
with the Chinese Consul.

736
00:48:58,107 --> 00:49:00,972
They sued the government over everything.

737
00:49:04,010 --> 00:49:08,221
Chinatown rose
up as one to fight the travel ban.

738
00:49:08,255 --> 00:49:12,225
Within days of the mandate,
a class action suit was filed,

739
00:49:12,259 --> 00:49:17,575
naming Kinyoun and the
San Francisco Board of Health.

740
00:49:17,609 --> 00:49:21,475
A businessman named Wong Wai sued,

741
00:49:21,510 --> 00:49:23,719
he went to court,

742
00:49:23,753 --> 00:49:26,515
and he charged that Dr. Kinyoun

743
00:49:26,549 --> 00:49:28,724
and everyone involved

744
00:49:28,758 --> 00:49:31,071
had violated the rights of the Chinese.

745
00:49:32,555 --> 00:49:34,626
There was a
petition for an injunction to stop

746
00:49:34,661 --> 00:49:36,180
the health authorities
from preventing people

747
00:49:36,214 --> 00:49:37,940
from leaving the city.

748
00:49:37,975 --> 00:49:40,287
It was racially discriminatory
and that was forbidden

749
00:49:40,322 --> 00:49:42,427
by the 14th amendment,

750
00:49:42,462 --> 00:49:44,602
which says, "No state shall
deprive any person of life,

751
00:49:44,636 --> 00:49:47,260
"liberty, or property without
due process of law,

752
00:49:47,294 --> 00:49:50,642
"nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction

753
00:49:50,677 --> 00:49:52,990
the equal protection
of the law."

754
00:49:53,024 --> 00:49:56,855
The Chinese were not eligible
to become citizens,

755
00:49:56,890 --> 00:49:59,272
but they had secured for themselves

756
00:49:59,306 --> 00:50:02,240
recognition as constitutional persons.

757
00:50:02,275 --> 00:50:05,036
And as such,
they came under the protection

758
00:50:05,071 --> 00:50:08,626
of the 14th amendment.

759
00:50:08,660 --> 00:50:13,734
What you end up having
for the court case is a question.

760
00:50:13,769 --> 00:50:20,327
Is this a kind of unfair use
of the law that targets

761
00:50:20,362 --> 00:50:25,022
one group racially unfairly?

762
00:50:25,056 --> 00:50:27,300
The judge agreed with the Chinese.

763
00:50:27,334 --> 00:50:31,028
And he said, "I see no proof
that you've offered

764
00:50:31,062 --> 00:50:35,032
"that this is a disease
more likely to be contracted by

765
00:50:35,066 --> 00:50:38,449
or transmitted by
Chinese people."

766
00:50:38,483 --> 00:50:42,004
He said, "This travel ban
had been illegally applied

767
00:50:42,039 --> 00:50:45,214
"with an evil eye and an uneven hand,

768
00:50:45,249 --> 00:50:49,632
"focused on racial theories
of disease transmission...

769
00:50:49,667 --> 00:50:51,979
completely unscientific."

770
00:50:55,569 --> 00:50:58,503
In addition, the judge
issued a restraining order against

771
00:50:58,538 --> 00:51:01,955
Kinyoun and advised him and the MHS

772
00:51:01,989 --> 00:51:06,822
in no uncertain terms to back off.

773
00:51:06,856 --> 00:51:08,134
Stung by the emphatic ruling,

774
00:51:08,168 --> 00:51:13,035
Kinyoun wired his fears to Wyman.

775
00:51:13,070 --> 00:51:18,385
Believe
situation to United States very grave.

776
00:51:18,420 --> 00:51:21,112
The decision practically
nullifies all acts

777
00:51:21,147 --> 00:51:24,288
of federal government.

778
00:51:24,322 --> 00:51:29,258
Most serious blow Service has received.

779
00:51:32,158 --> 00:51:34,677
Unwavering in his convictions,

780
00:51:34,712 --> 00:51:37,404
Kinyoun ignored the judge
and continued to enforce

781
00:51:37,439 --> 00:51:42,651
the known scientific measures
of isolation and sanitation.

782
00:51:42,685 --> 00:51:45,309
He pushed for camps on Angel Island,

783
00:51:45,343 --> 00:51:47,932
as well as remote Mission Rock,

784
00:51:47,966 --> 00:51:53,386
to detain people even suspected
of having the plague.

785
00:51:53,420 --> 00:51:57,355
There were now threats
to remove people forcibly from Chinatown.

786
00:52:01,014 --> 00:52:03,568
And at the head of it all
was Dr. Kinyoun,

787
00:52:03,603 --> 00:52:05,432
so he was called the Wolf Doctor.

788
00:52:09,022 --> 00:52:13,578
He acquired this nickname
for what was perceived as

789
00:52:13,613 --> 00:52:16,685
this snappy and officious manner...

790
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:20,240
aggressive, an assault on people,

791
00:52:20,275 --> 00:52:22,173
kind of adding insult to injury.

792
00:52:29,491 --> 00:52:33,564
"The wolf doctor
is baring his claws and teeth."

793
00:52:33,598 --> 00:52:37,602
"Enforced relocation
to an icy remote island"

794
00:52:37,637 --> 00:52:43,401
"renders us without wings to fly."

795
00:52:43,436 --> 00:52:48,441
"Chung Sai Yat Po Daily."

796
00:52:48,475 --> 00:52:50,822
The city and the health
authorities were never really

797
00:52:50,857 --> 00:52:56,759
interested in ameliorating
the conditions in Chinatown.

798
00:52:56,794 --> 00:53:00,625
What they wanted to do was
isolate the Chinese community,

799
00:53:00,660 --> 00:53:04,284
protect white people,
and that was their goal.

800
00:53:04,319 --> 00:53:07,770
So there's very little space
to gain people's trust

801
00:53:07,805 --> 00:53:09,634
because the whole thing is rotten.

802
00:53:13,776 --> 00:53:16,572
And now, other states were starting to put

803
00:53:16,607 --> 00:53:19,782
commercial pressure on California as well.

804
00:53:19,817 --> 00:53:20,887
Everything erupted

805
00:53:20,921 --> 00:53:23,648
in an acrimonious three-day meeting...

806
00:53:23,683 --> 00:53:27,065
with Kinyoun weighing in forcefully.

807
00:53:29,240 --> 00:53:31,208
The state of Texas

808
00:53:31,242 --> 00:53:32,968
was preventing people and products

809
00:53:33,002 --> 00:53:34,590
from San Francisco,

810
00:53:34,625 --> 00:53:36,834
from entering Texas.

811
00:53:36,868 --> 00:53:40,182
So, the state board of health
was putting tremendous pressure

812
00:53:40,217 --> 00:53:43,358
on the local board of health
and says, "What you need to do

813
00:53:43,392 --> 00:53:45,256
is quarantine Chinatown."

814
00:53:49,398 --> 00:53:53,091
On May 28, Kinyoun privately exulted

815
00:53:53,126 --> 00:53:55,784
when the state health board
secured what he had long thought

816
00:53:55,818 --> 00:53:57,786
was the best option...

817
00:53:57,820 --> 00:54:04,275
a full lockdown of all
of Chinatown, indefinitely.

818
00:54:04,310 --> 00:54:09,384
Within hours, 159 policemen
descended on the district,

819
00:54:09,418 --> 00:54:12,249
working in three around-the-clock shifts.

820
00:54:14,147 --> 00:54:16,598
They start putting
barbed wire around the quarter,

821
00:54:16,632 --> 00:54:20,498
they start putting
a wall up around Chinatown.

822
00:54:23,018 --> 00:54:25,917
It becomes very clear
to the Chinese that this is

823
00:54:25,952 --> 00:54:28,506
not like the first quarantine.

824
00:54:31,337 --> 00:54:33,200
The Chinese were very, very
upset immediately,

825
00:54:33,235 --> 00:54:35,548
as soon as the quarantine was declared.

826
00:54:37,584 --> 00:54:43,210
Once again, nearly
20,000 people were locked down.

827
00:54:43,245 --> 00:54:46,075
They had no idea when
they would be allowed out

828
00:54:46,110 --> 00:54:48,906
or whether the authorities
might even attempt to burn down

829
00:54:48,940 --> 00:54:52,150
the district like Honolulu
only months before.

830
00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:57,121
With no streetcar service,

831
00:54:57,155 --> 00:55:00,745
or incoming shipments of food
and other vital supplies,

832
00:55:00,780 --> 00:55:03,230
panic quickly spread.

833
00:55:05,888 --> 00:55:09,961
It was very draconian for the Chinese.

834
00:55:09,996 --> 00:55:11,825
You had this complicated
interaction between

835
00:55:11,860 --> 00:55:16,036
the city, state,
and the federal government.

836
00:55:16,071 --> 00:55:19,108
But there was almost a consensus
that, among all of them,

837
00:55:19,143 --> 00:55:21,697
that somehow the heart of
the problem were the Chinese.

838
00:55:21,732 --> 00:55:23,837
And if we could just control the Chinese,

839
00:55:23,872 --> 00:55:26,426
we could control this plague.

840
00:55:30,396 --> 00:55:33,226
People had that sense of doubt.

841
00:55:33,260 --> 00:55:37,644
Is this the way in which
the health officials

842
00:55:37,679 --> 00:55:41,027
who never cared about our
wellbeing want to eradicate us?

843
00:55:44,099 --> 00:55:49,484
Once more, the Chinese
turned to the most powerful tool they had.

844
00:55:52,970 --> 00:55:55,006
They file suit again.

845
00:55:55,041 --> 00:55:56,491
And this leads to

846
00:55:56,525 --> 00:56:00,667
the second case,
Jew Ho vs. Williamson.

847
00:56:00,702 --> 00:56:04,188
And, again, Kinyoun was a named defendant.

848
00:56:04,222 --> 00:56:06,535
A grocer on Stockton Street,

849
00:56:06,570 --> 00:56:11,402
Jew Ho noticed that the
quarantine lines were not drawn

850
00:56:11,437 --> 00:56:15,268
in a straight line around
all businesses in the region,

851
00:56:15,302 --> 00:56:20,307
that they zigged and zagged
to exclude white merchants.

852
00:56:20,342 --> 00:56:26,106
And was specifically designed
not to protect the health

853
00:56:26,141 --> 00:56:29,938
of an entire district,
but to isolate the Chinese.

854
00:56:32,285 --> 00:56:34,770
The quarantine
line was along Stockton Street,

855
00:56:34,805 --> 00:56:37,566
so the cannery was in quarantine.

856
00:56:37,601 --> 00:56:41,536
And the white workers, women and girls,

857
00:56:41,570 --> 00:56:43,192
employed by Lew Hing

858
00:56:43,227 --> 00:56:47,058
in the cannery, they were
allowed to come and go,

859
00:56:47,093 --> 00:56:50,130
but not the Chinese.

860
00:56:50,165 --> 00:56:51,822
The judge says,

861
00:56:51,856 --> 00:56:54,100
it's very clear that the
Caucasians on the perimeter

862
00:56:54,134 --> 00:56:55,688
are being treated differently.

863
00:56:55,722 --> 00:56:56,861
And it has to do with whether this is

864
00:56:56,896 --> 00:56:59,554
a reasonable exercise of the police power.

865
00:56:59,588 --> 00:57:01,210
And again, the court says no, it isn't

866
00:57:01,245 --> 00:57:04,213
because the Chinese are not
being protected at all.

867
00:57:04,248 --> 00:57:07,251
They're not being prevented from
intermingling with each other;

868
00:57:07,285 --> 00:57:10,047
the individuals who had contact
with these people

869
00:57:10,081 --> 00:57:12,256
who died of the plague
have not been quarantined.

870
00:57:12,290 --> 00:57:14,465
So, if the idea is to prevent

871
00:57:14,500 --> 00:57:16,122
the spread of a contagious disease,

872
00:57:16,156 --> 00:57:18,089
isn't this an unreasonable way to do it?

873
00:57:31,275 --> 00:57:32,690
A day after the ruling,

874
00:57:32,725 --> 00:57:35,452
Kinyoun imposed a sweeping travel ban

875
00:57:35,486 --> 00:57:39,179
on all Californians, regardless of race.

876
00:57:39,214 --> 00:57:41,941
This meant no one could leave the state

877
00:57:41,975 --> 00:57:44,461
without a health certificate from him.

878
00:57:45,945 --> 00:57:50,397
And, of course, that made him
a menace to the entire city

879
00:57:50,432 --> 00:57:53,297
and the whole state of California.

880
00:57:55,264 --> 00:57:58,785
Dr. Kinyoun
was a top-down officer.

881
00:57:58,820 --> 00:58:04,377
He led by issuing
sound scientific diagnoses.

882
00:58:04,411 --> 00:58:06,759
That plays very well in the lab,

883
00:58:06,793 --> 00:58:08,346
and not so well on the street.

884
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:16,423
Three days later, on June 19, 1900,

885
00:58:16,458 --> 00:58:18,633
Kinyoun was dealt a stunning rebuke.

886
00:58:18,667 --> 00:58:22,775
President William McKinley
was forced to apologize

887
00:58:22,809 --> 00:58:24,984
to enraged state legislators

888
00:58:25,018 --> 00:58:27,504
for the actions of his federal officer

889
00:58:27,538 --> 00:58:29,713
and swiftly revoked the travel ban.

890
00:58:31,369 --> 00:58:33,406
Desperate to do the right thing,

891
00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:36,305
Kinyoun had played his biggest card

892
00:58:36,340 --> 00:58:37,410
and lost.

893
00:58:41,621 --> 00:58:44,590
But the situation only worsened.

894
00:58:44,624 --> 00:58:48,801
Until now, there had been
13 confirmed plague deaths,

895
00:58:48,835 --> 00:58:50,768
all Chinese.

896
00:58:50,803 --> 00:58:52,770
From the beginning,

897
00:58:52,805 --> 00:58:54,772
racial pseudoscience had lulled many

898
00:58:54,807 --> 00:58:57,568
into the complacency of ignorance.

899
00:58:57,603 --> 00:59:00,191
What's more, the disease came and went

900
00:59:00,226 --> 00:59:03,885
in mysterious and inexplicable waves.

901
00:59:03,919 --> 00:59:07,958
Kinyoun feared that the plague
was spreading in darkness.

902
00:59:07,992 --> 00:59:10,685
This was confirmed in mid-August

903
00:59:10,719 --> 00:59:13,964
when the first known white
victim, William Murphy,

904
00:59:13,998 --> 00:59:17,830
fell ill and died.

905
00:59:17,864 --> 00:59:21,592
A worker who routinely made
deliveries to Chinatown,

906
00:59:21,627 --> 00:59:25,216
he was succeeded that fall
by another non-Chinese victim,

907
00:59:25,251 --> 00:59:28,012
a nurse at the children's hospital,

908
00:59:28,047 --> 00:59:30,325
who had never been to the district.

909
00:59:34,743 --> 00:59:37,643
Panicked that the disease had
begun to spread

910
00:59:37,677 --> 00:59:42,371
beyond Chinatown, Kinyoun put
all his men on high alert.

911
00:59:43,821 --> 00:59:47,618
Late that September,
a steamship called the Coptic

912
00:59:47,653 --> 00:59:51,484
arrived from Hawaii
and docked at Angel Island.

913
00:59:51,518 --> 00:59:56,834
An overzealous health official
ordered that all passengers,

914
00:59:56,869 --> 01:00:00,424
rich and poor, male and female alike,

915
01:00:00,458 --> 01:00:02,460
be strip-searched en masse

916
01:00:02,495 --> 01:00:05,187
and examined for buboes
in the armpits and groin.

917
01:00:07,465 --> 01:00:10,572
First-class passengers were outraged,

918
01:00:10,607 --> 01:00:13,817
and vowed to never again sail
into San Francisco

919
01:00:13,851 --> 01:00:16,923
as long as Kinyoun was in charge.

920
01:00:16,958 --> 01:00:18,753
And now,

921
01:00:18,787 --> 01:00:21,238
everyone is out for blood.

922
01:00:23,516 --> 01:00:25,311
The state senate in California,

923
01:00:25,345 --> 01:00:27,520
say that Kinyoun should be hung
for what he's doing.

924
01:00:29,729 --> 01:00:32,180
He had been decried

925
01:00:32,214 --> 01:00:35,286
by the politicians, by the press.

926
01:00:35,321 --> 01:00:38,669
The legislators want him to leave,

927
01:00:38,704 --> 01:00:40,671
lobbying the federal government

928
01:00:40,706 --> 01:00:43,225
for his transfer out of the city.

929
01:00:45,158 --> 01:00:48,334
By now, Dr. Kinyoun had been
smacked down in the courts.

930
01:00:49,576 --> 01:00:53,580
He was defending his hypothesis,
his diagnosis,

931
01:00:53,615 --> 01:00:57,999
his standing in the
Marine Hospital Service.

932
01:00:58,033 --> 01:01:01,071
So he's literally
a man under fire, besieged.

933
01:01:04,039 --> 01:01:08,526
It appears to me
that commercial interests of San Francisco

934
01:01:08,561 --> 01:01:12,116
are more dear to the inhabitants

935
01:01:12,151 --> 01:01:16,534
than the preservation of human life.

936
01:01:16,569 --> 01:01:20,815
I am at war with everybody out here.

937
01:01:20,849 --> 01:01:23,024
Joseph Kinyoun.

938
01:01:25,785 --> 01:01:31,446
California's Governor Gage spun
a fantastic conspiracy theory.

939
01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:35,036
He said that Dr. Kinyoun
and the federal doctors

940
01:01:35,070 --> 01:01:38,971
had actually created a fake plague

941
01:01:39,005 --> 01:01:42,664
by injecting corpses with plague bacteria

942
01:01:42,699 --> 01:01:44,183
that they had secretly imported.

943
01:01:45,391 --> 01:01:48,221
That it was all made up.

944
01:01:49,878 --> 01:01:53,986
And he planted the seed of doubt
in people's mind.

945
01:01:56,540 --> 01:01:58,784
This was too much for
Dr. Kinyoun.

946
01:01:58,818 --> 01:02:02,442
And in despair and anger,

947
01:02:02,477 --> 01:02:04,168
he wired his boss,

948
01:02:04,203 --> 01:02:06,619
Surgeon General Walter Wyman, and said,

949
01:02:06,653 --> 01:02:11,417
"Please defend me from
this slander against myself

950
01:02:11,451 --> 01:02:12,659
and the Marine Hospital
Service."

951
01:02:16,111 --> 01:02:20,046
But Wyman chose to remain silent.

952
01:02:20,081 --> 01:02:24,775
Kinyoun was left defenseless,
and utterly alone.

953
01:02:24,810 --> 01:02:28,779
In despair, he wrote to a colleague.

954
01:02:30,885 --> 01:02:33,715
My exoneration rests upon

955
01:02:33,750 --> 01:02:37,650
Dr. Wyman openly avowing
his responsibility

956
01:02:37,684 --> 01:02:40,895
for my official actions.

957
01:02:40,929 --> 01:02:46,624
This he should, if he possesses
the courage of a man.

958
01:02:46,659 --> 01:02:52,113
All these years I have stood
loyally by his side...

959
01:02:52,147 --> 01:02:56,289
keeping his political head
from rolling into the basket.

960
01:03:00,017 --> 01:03:03,641
It took a lot of stamina

961
01:03:03,676 --> 01:03:07,507
and guts to stay the course,
that what he believed in.

962
01:03:07,542 --> 01:03:10,269
'Cause he knew it, where
everybody else doubted him.

963
01:03:13,306 --> 01:03:17,069
Barely nine months
since his first forensic diagnosis,

964
01:03:17,103 --> 01:03:21,936
Kinyoun confirmed the 22nd
known plague casualty.

965
01:03:21,970 --> 01:03:25,905
Seeking vindication,
he now demanded a thorough,

966
01:03:25,940 --> 01:03:29,288
outside investigation into
the truth of the matter.

967
01:03:29,322 --> 01:03:31,324
Meanwhile,

968
01:03:31,359 --> 01:03:34,189
word of San Francisco's troubles

969
01:03:34,224 --> 01:03:37,330
continued to spread across the country.

970
01:03:37,365 --> 01:03:40,506
It became obvious
to everybody in the country

971
01:03:40,540 --> 01:03:42,128
that San Francisco had an epidemic

972
01:03:42,163 --> 01:03:43,129
and they weren't admitting to it.

973
01:03:44,993 --> 01:03:47,202
The federal government
and the state government

974
01:03:47,237 --> 01:03:50,896
of California were at a standoff.

975
01:03:50,930 --> 01:03:53,036
So, a deal was cut that there would be

976
01:03:53,070 --> 01:03:55,141
a neutral federal commission.

977
01:03:55,176 --> 01:03:58,213
Three of the most prominent
bacteriologists

978
01:03:58,248 --> 01:04:01,596
in the United States would go
west to investigate

979
01:04:01,630 --> 01:04:05,462
and find out whether there
really was a plague epidemic,

980
01:04:05,496 --> 01:04:07,257
and whether Kinyoun was doing
the right things

981
01:04:07,291 --> 01:04:09,742
or the wrong things.

982
01:04:12,400 --> 01:04:16,507
Kinyoun, was
looking for that sense of validation.

983
01:04:16,542 --> 01:04:20,373
He felt like he was 2,000 miles away

984
01:04:20,408 --> 01:04:23,894
from anybody he'd consider
his peer who he trusted.

985
01:04:23,929 --> 01:04:26,724
You know, "Finally, here are
people who care about science,

986
01:04:26,759 --> 01:04:30,176
"who care about medicine.

987
01:04:30,211 --> 01:04:31,660
"And now I'm going to be validated,

988
01:04:31,695 --> 01:04:33,179
"and we're going to save,
you know, thousands,

989
01:04:33,214 --> 01:04:34,422
if not millions, of lives."

990
01:04:36,079 --> 01:04:39,082
When the three-man
commission arrived in San Francisco

991
01:04:39,116 --> 01:04:41,878
in late January 1901,

992
01:04:41,912 --> 01:04:45,882
they felt the full urgency
of their mission.

993
01:04:45,916 --> 01:04:48,091
Sensing they had to penetrate Chinatown,

994
01:04:48,125 --> 01:04:51,853
they immediately hired a local
translator and go-between,

995
01:04:51,888 --> 01:04:56,409
a former Six Companies
secretary named Wong Chung.

996
01:04:56,444 --> 01:05:00,966
He was the link
between medical establishment,

997
01:05:01,000 --> 01:05:03,761
San Francisco establishment,

998
01:05:03,796 --> 01:05:07,904
the Chinese Six Companies,
and Chinatown itself.

999
01:05:10,009 --> 01:05:12,115
The move paid off.

1000
01:05:12,149 --> 01:05:14,911
With the help of Wong Chung,

1001
01:05:14,945 --> 01:05:17,534
and with Kinyoun safely on Angel Island,

1002
01:05:17,568 --> 01:05:19,605
the commission was quickly able to gain

1003
01:05:19,639 --> 01:05:21,918
what had been missing for months:

1004
01:05:21,952 --> 01:05:24,782
not just trust, but access.

1005
01:05:27,095 --> 01:05:31,858
Within weeks,
they confirmed six new cases.

1006
01:05:33,791 --> 01:05:35,655
When Governor Henry Gage

1007
01:05:35,690 --> 01:05:40,281
learned of the commission's
upcoming report, he panicked.

1008
01:05:40,315 --> 01:05:44,768
He hastily made a trip to
Washington D.C.,

1009
01:05:44,802 --> 01:05:46,356
accompanied by a hand-picked army

1010
01:05:46,390 --> 01:05:48,116
of the most powerful men in California:

1011
01:05:48,151 --> 01:05:49,842
senators,

1012
01:05:49,876 --> 01:05:51,395
newspaper editors,

1013
01:05:51,430 --> 01:05:53,432
and business leaders.

1014
01:05:55,123 --> 01:06:00,232
When he arrived in Washington, he visited

1015
01:06:00,266 --> 01:06:05,616
Surgeon General Walter Wyman,
and he proposed a quid pro quo.

1016
01:06:05,651 --> 01:06:08,999
He said, "We will clean up
the city of San Francisco

1017
01:06:09,034 --> 01:06:12,727
"if you keep the existence of plague

1018
01:06:12,761 --> 01:06:15,247
secret from the nation."

1019
01:06:17,318 --> 01:06:19,354
Both sides had much to gain.

1020
01:06:19,389 --> 01:06:21,839
California needed the White House

1021
01:06:21,874 --> 01:06:23,600
to put an end to the matter

1022
01:06:23,634 --> 01:06:27,466
that was threatening to take
down its economy and reputation.

1023
01:06:30,193 --> 01:06:32,609
And McKinley needed the vote-rich state

1024
01:06:32,643 --> 01:06:36,130
to ensure his upcoming bid
for re-election.

1025
01:06:36,164 --> 01:06:41,928
All of the men now agreed:
one hand would wash the other.

1026
01:06:43,689 --> 01:06:45,725
And this unholy deal

1027
01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:48,556
was undertaken in the office

1028
01:06:48,590 --> 01:06:50,006
of the President of the United States...

1029
01:06:50,040 --> 01:06:55,804
President McKinley, in concert
with senior Republican leaders,

1030
01:06:55,839 --> 01:06:58,773
including those from California.

1031
01:06:58,807 --> 01:07:03,019
And they struck a deal
with the surgeon general to maintain

1032
01:07:03,053 --> 01:07:05,676
what Dr. Walter Wyman,
surgeon general,

1033
01:07:05,711 --> 01:07:07,471
called a perfect seal of silence.

1034
01:07:07,506 --> 01:07:10,647
They would hush it up.

1035
01:07:16,101 --> 01:07:18,827
On March 6, 1901,

1036
01:07:18,862 --> 01:07:23,315
exactly one year since
Wong Chut King's death,

1037
01:07:23,349 --> 01:07:24,937
a local headline blared

1038
01:07:24,971 --> 01:07:28,009
an unexpected and scandalous scoop.

1039
01:07:28,975 --> 01:07:31,909
Reporters broke news

1040
01:07:31,944 --> 01:07:35,913
of this infamous pact signed by
the surgeon general

1041
01:07:35,948 --> 01:07:37,087
and the governor of California.

1042
01:07:38,951 --> 01:07:44,439
And word got out about this cover-up.

1043
01:07:50,549 --> 01:07:54,794
Wyman found
himself in an uncomfortable position.

1044
01:07:54,829 --> 01:07:59,454
Yet he also knew that much
of the vitriol aimed at the MHS

1045
01:07:59,489 --> 01:08:03,493
had been greatly exacerbated
by Kinyoun's actions.

1046
01:08:03,527 --> 01:08:08,187
His perceived lack of diplomacy
was all anyone could talk about.

1047
01:08:10,224 --> 01:08:12,571
Kinyoun had to be thrown under the bus.

1048
01:08:12,605 --> 01:08:14,538
And so he was removed from his job

1049
01:08:14,573 --> 01:08:17,817
without any real explanation for why.

1050
01:08:21,200 --> 01:08:26,688
In May 1901, Kinyoun
was ordered without thanks, fanfare,

1051
01:08:26,723 --> 01:08:31,245
or even notice, to pack up his
family and relocate to Detroit.

1052
01:08:33,971 --> 01:08:37,975
He had spent two long years
trying to protect the country,

1053
01:08:38,010 --> 01:08:40,737
and seemingly all in vain.

1054
01:08:42,946 --> 01:08:45,190
It was such a devastating blow

1055
01:08:45,224 --> 01:08:50,091
because it basically ended his
scientific career in many ways.

1056
01:08:50,126 --> 01:08:53,163
He did not get to go back
to his beloved lab.

1057
01:08:53,198 --> 01:08:54,544
And I think that was devastating.

1058
01:08:56,856 --> 01:08:59,825
And I think he
believed he had spent his life

1059
01:08:59,859 --> 01:09:02,828
doing really good things,
and he was very proud of that.

1060
01:09:02,862 --> 01:09:05,071
And I think to be thrown under the bus

1061
01:09:05,106 --> 01:09:07,936
was probably devastating to him.

1062
01:09:07,971 --> 01:09:10,491
Because it called into question

1063
01:09:10,525 --> 01:09:12,941
the goodness of all those things
he'd been doing for so long.

1064
01:09:15,427 --> 01:09:17,429
Dr. Kinyoun did the hard work

1065
01:09:17,463 --> 01:09:21,502
of nailing the scientific diagnosis.

1066
01:09:21,536 --> 01:09:24,953
He just couldn't make it stick
in the minds of the populace.

1067
01:09:26,852 --> 01:09:30,511
And he was hurt, he was indignant.

1068
01:09:30,545 --> 01:09:34,480
And being somewhat hot-tempered,
he didn't go quietly.

1069
01:09:36,172 --> 01:09:38,381
He blasted the city,

1070
01:09:38,415 --> 01:09:42,454
blasted Chinatown,
blasted all the authorities.

1071
01:09:44,973 --> 01:09:47,631
Kinyoun had come to San Francisco

1072
01:09:47,666 --> 01:09:51,497
expecting to champion science
and save the country.

1073
01:09:51,532 --> 01:09:55,052
Instead, he had been sent away
in ignominy,

1074
01:09:55,087 --> 01:09:57,676
while the danger still remained.

1075
01:10:05,960 --> 01:10:10,033
With Kinyoun gone,
California turned to happier business.

1076
01:10:10,067 --> 01:10:14,589
As their part of the secret deal
brokered months before,

1077
01:10:14,624 --> 01:10:17,247
state politicians welcomed
President McKinley

1078
01:10:17,282 --> 01:10:20,561
to a lavish, all-expenses-paid junket.

1079
01:10:22,356 --> 01:10:27,153
Meanwhile, Wyman was on the hunt
for a new quarantine officer.

1080
01:10:27,188 --> 01:10:30,674
But after Kinyoun's humiliating ouster,

1081
01:10:30,709 --> 01:10:33,436
no one in the MHS community wanted

1082
01:10:33,470 --> 01:10:37,612
what they saw as an impossible job.

1083
01:10:41,375 --> 01:10:45,551
He finally settled on a
candidate: Rupert Lee Blue,

1084
01:10:45,586 --> 01:10:50,142
a 32-year old physician from the MHS.

1085
01:10:50,176 --> 01:10:55,112
Unlike Kinyoun, Blue wasn't
a research scientist.

1086
01:10:55,147 --> 01:10:59,013
He lacked Kinyoun's medical
pedigree and rigorous training.

1087
01:10:59,047 --> 01:11:04,260
In fact, he wasn't Wyman's
first or even second choice.

1088
01:11:06,158 --> 01:11:08,333
Rupert Lee Blue,

1089
01:11:08,367 --> 01:11:11,301
or Pert as he was known by his nickname,

1090
01:11:11,336 --> 01:11:12,923
was round-faced and shy.

1091
01:11:12,958 --> 01:11:13,890
He was diffident.

1092
01:11:13,924 --> 01:11:18,204
And he really loved boxing matches.

1093
01:11:19,654 --> 01:11:21,587
Not just as a spectator but also

1094
01:11:21,622 --> 01:11:23,900
as an amateur participant.

1095
01:11:28,732 --> 01:11:31,632
He was preceded by rumors that
he was lazy,

1096
01:11:31,666 --> 01:11:34,151
as one of his colleagues
called him "inert."

1097
01:11:34,186 --> 01:11:36,568
"Inert Pert."

1098
01:11:36,602 --> 01:11:39,950
He was known as kind of affable guy,

1099
01:11:39,985 --> 01:11:42,470
not necessarily the most accomplished.

1100
01:11:42,505 --> 01:11:44,886
Other people thought of him as, you know,

1101
01:11:44,921 --> 01:11:46,923
somebody who is barely getting by,

1102
01:11:46,957 --> 01:11:49,477
but it's hard to be that
critical of somebody you like,

1103
01:11:49,512 --> 01:11:51,237
you know, or somebody who's friendly.

1104
01:11:56,035 --> 01:11:58,348
The sixth of eight children,

1105
01:11:58,383 --> 01:12:01,938
Blue was born three years after
the end of the Civil War

1106
01:12:01,972 --> 01:12:04,285
to a struggling but respected family

1107
01:12:04,320 --> 01:12:06,736
in Marion, South Carolina.

1108
01:12:09,532 --> 01:12:12,500
Blue came from nothing, essentially,

1109
01:12:12,535 --> 01:12:15,572
and grew up in the fields.

1110
01:12:15,607 --> 01:12:18,161
He'd walk with his siblings,

1111
01:12:18,195 --> 01:12:19,818
bursting open watermelons with his fist

1112
01:12:19,852 --> 01:12:21,751
and eating right there in the fields.

1113
01:12:24,443 --> 01:12:27,619
He knew he was not the most favored son.

1114
01:12:27,653 --> 01:12:30,346
His older brother, Victor, was a war hero.

1115
01:12:30,380 --> 01:12:34,350
And the parents idolized Victor.

1116
01:12:34,384 --> 01:12:37,939
Rupert Blue kind of felt that

1117
01:12:37,974 --> 01:12:40,079
"If Victor's purpose in life is to harm,

1118
01:12:40,114 --> 01:12:42,323
perhaps my purpose in life is
to heal."

1119
01:12:42,358 --> 01:12:43,600
So he went into medicine.

1120
01:12:43,635 --> 01:12:47,017
And went to one of the first
public medical schools

1121
01:12:47,052 --> 01:12:48,605
in the U.S.

1122
01:12:51,505 --> 01:12:53,817
He wrote letters to his mom saying,

1123
01:12:53,852 --> 01:12:55,405
"I don't think I can hack it.

1124
01:12:55,440 --> 01:12:57,338
I can barely survive."

1125
01:12:57,373 --> 01:12:59,823
And he barely graduated medical school.

1126
01:13:02,516 --> 01:13:04,483
Blue joined the Commissioned Corps

1127
01:13:04,518 --> 01:13:06,209
of the Marine Hospital Service.

1128
01:13:07,624 --> 01:13:10,834
The MHS represented adventure
with a purpose,

1129
01:13:10,869 --> 01:13:14,182
the chance to see a world bigger than that

1130
01:13:14,217 --> 01:13:17,807
of his small-town boyhood,
and to confront diseases

1131
01:13:17,841 --> 01:13:21,224
he had only read about in school.

1132
01:13:21,258 --> 01:13:23,122
As a quarantine officer,

1133
01:13:23,157 --> 01:13:25,953
he tracked yellow fever in Galveston,

1134
01:13:25,987 --> 01:13:29,025
monitored infectious diseases
in Milwaukee,

1135
01:13:29,059 --> 01:13:34,133
and investigated
possible plague cases in Rome.

1136
01:13:34,168 --> 01:13:36,273
He had to work hard.

1137
01:13:36,308 --> 01:13:39,518
Having lost his father to illness,

1138
01:13:39,553 --> 01:13:42,107
he had to send money to his widowed mother

1139
01:13:42,141 --> 01:13:45,800
and to his teenage sisters at home.

1140
01:13:45,835 --> 01:13:47,837
So he was working
in the Marine Hospital Service,

1141
01:13:47,871 --> 01:13:50,391
and also taking all these other side jobs

1142
01:13:50,426 --> 01:13:53,498
as editor of a medical bulletin
or a newsletter

1143
01:13:53,532 --> 01:13:55,534
just to try to bring in more money.

1144
01:13:59,020 --> 01:14:01,678
The new posting in San Francisco,

1145
01:14:01,713 --> 01:14:06,096
commercial hub for the nation
and Asia, was a huge step up

1146
01:14:06,131 --> 01:14:09,099
from monitoring shipping fleets
on Lake Michigan.

1147
01:14:09,134 --> 01:14:13,932
It was a high-profile chance
for Blue to prove himself,

1148
01:14:13,966 --> 01:14:19,316
although it came with seemingly
insurmountable obstacles.

1149
01:14:19,351 --> 01:14:24,977
Chinatown feared and distrusted
the MHS and its agents.

1150
01:14:25,012 --> 01:14:30,120
City leaders were openly vying
for their own interests.

1151
01:14:30,155 --> 01:14:33,227
State officials still
refused to acknowledge

1152
01:14:33,261 --> 01:14:35,678
that the disease even existed.

1153
01:14:37,265 --> 01:14:39,578
By June 1901,

1154
01:14:39,613 --> 01:14:43,789
there had been a total
of 34 official plague deaths,

1155
01:14:43,824 --> 01:14:47,621
so Blue knew he had no time to lose.

1156
01:14:49,692 --> 01:14:51,279
The first thing he did,

1157
01:14:51,314 --> 01:14:54,075
he moved into the city and he set up a lab

1158
01:14:54,110 --> 01:14:57,527
right on Merchant Street,
which is Chinatown,

1159
01:14:57,562 --> 01:15:00,150
and he was comfortable there.

1160
01:15:02,670 --> 01:15:04,120
He would literally just walk into shops

1161
01:15:04,154 --> 01:15:05,604
and start talking to people

1162
01:15:05,639 --> 01:15:07,606
and trying to make those
kinds of friendships

1163
01:15:07,641 --> 01:15:09,574
and forge those social bonds.

1164
01:15:09,608 --> 01:15:11,921
And Kinyoun, when he went into Chinatown,

1165
01:15:11,955 --> 01:15:15,200
he had to have a protection
of armed officers.

1166
01:15:15,234 --> 01:15:18,928
Blue, he would walk down
the streets by himself.

1167
01:15:24,278 --> 01:15:27,315
Blue also kept on Wong Chung,

1168
01:15:27,350 --> 01:15:31,181
the interpreter who had assisted
the federal commission.

1169
01:15:31,216 --> 01:15:33,805
And since he knew that Chinatown's dead

1170
01:15:33,839 --> 01:15:36,255
seemed to mysteriously vanish,

1171
01:15:36,290 --> 01:15:40,397
he talked Surgeon General Wyman
into an unusual expense.

1172
01:15:42,330 --> 01:15:45,506
He arranged for a
horse and buggy to have his own,

1173
01:15:45,541 --> 01:15:47,404
essentially, morgue service,

1174
01:15:47,439 --> 01:15:48,716
so he could find bodies

1175
01:15:48,751 --> 01:15:50,960
and he could inspect them
as quickly as he could.

1176
01:15:52,271 --> 01:15:54,653
Blue also paid the Chinese translators

1177
01:15:54,688 --> 01:15:57,311
the same as he did as his
white members of the staff,

1178
01:15:57,345 --> 01:16:00,003
which was radical at the time.

1179
01:16:00,038 --> 01:16:02,937
He found himself relying more and more

1180
01:16:02,972 --> 01:16:05,181
on his translator, Wong Chung.

1181
01:16:05,215 --> 01:16:10,082
Not just as a translator and interpreter,

1182
01:16:10,117 --> 01:16:13,258
but also as a sort of cultural liaison.

1183
01:16:13,292 --> 01:16:17,020
So, Wong Chung helped
Dr. Blue understand

1184
01:16:17,055 --> 01:16:21,577
the community's resistance to
Western medical interventions.

1185
01:16:29,239 --> 01:16:32,242
With Wong as his trusted go-between,

1186
01:16:32,277 --> 01:16:36,522
Blue revised the harsh protocol
of his predecessor.

1187
01:16:36,557 --> 01:16:41,597
He disinfected only targeted
houses, not whole streets.

1188
01:16:41,631 --> 01:16:45,186
He quarantined immediate family alone,

1189
01:16:45,221 --> 01:16:48,811
and limited lockdown to the
shortest time possible.

1190
01:16:52,055 --> 01:16:55,127
He was somebody who was willing to listen,

1191
01:16:55,162 --> 01:16:56,784
which was a real skill.

1192
01:16:56,819 --> 01:16:59,304
He knew he wasn't the smartest.

1193
01:16:59,338 --> 01:17:02,031
He knew he didn't necessarily
have insights

1194
01:17:02,065 --> 01:17:04,654
that other people did,
but he was willing to,

1195
01:17:04,689 --> 01:17:05,931
to try everything.

1196
01:17:09,383 --> 01:17:13,559
But what Blue discovered was unnerving.

1197
01:17:13,594 --> 01:17:16,873
In the month of July,
three Japanese prostitutes

1198
01:17:16,908 --> 01:17:20,083
working on the edge of Chinatown died.

1199
01:17:21,775 --> 01:17:24,398
Blue reeled at the thought
that the women had had contact

1200
01:17:24,432 --> 01:17:26,814
with literally dozens
of nameless customers.

1201
01:17:28,954 --> 01:17:31,336
How many were there?

1202
01:17:31,370 --> 01:17:33,890
Where did they go?

1203
01:17:33,925 --> 01:17:36,341
Blue was terrified that the disease

1204
01:17:36,375 --> 01:17:39,344
was poised to explode exponentially,

1205
01:17:39,378 --> 01:17:41,829
as he admitted to Wyman.

1206
01:17:41,864 --> 01:17:44,556
It would not be an easy matter

1207
01:17:44,590 --> 01:17:47,835
to trace the source of this infection.

1208
01:17:47,870 --> 01:17:51,736
The Chinese seem to know a suspicious case

1209
01:17:51,770 --> 01:17:54,808
and depart, like the fleas.

1210
01:17:54,842 --> 01:17:56,016
Rupert Blue.

1211
01:17:56,050 --> 01:18:01,228
On the big map right behind his desk,

1212
01:18:01,262 --> 01:18:02,781
he starts putting red marks

1213
01:18:02,816 --> 01:18:04,024
everywhere there's a known plague victim.

1214
01:18:04,058 --> 01:18:07,510
And that becomes this obsession
to try to prevent

1215
01:18:07,544 --> 01:18:10,582
more red marks from showing up on his map,

1216
01:18:10,616 --> 01:18:14,379
but also to try to find some
kind of connection

1217
01:18:14,413 --> 01:18:16,036
between these victims.

1218
01:18:21,075 --> 01:18:23,112
For the rest of the summer,

1219
01:18:23,146 --> 01:18:26,943
Blue patiently continued
to explore Chinatown,

1220
01:18:26,978 --> 01:18:30,706
always on the lookout for more cases.

1221
01:18:35,780 --> 01:18:41,613
On September 11, 1901,
following a tip from Wong Chung,

1222
01:18:41,647 --> 01:18:44,098
Blue and his men had a rare opportunity.

1223
01:18:45,651 --> 01:18:48,724
In the basement of a grocery store,

1224
01:18:48,758 --> 01:18:52,313
they found a 28-year-old man
with signs of the plague,

1225
01:18:52,348 --> 01:18:56,386
and took him to the Tung Wah
Dispensary for observation.

1226
01:18:56,421 --> 01:18:59,286
Well, friends of the patient

1227
01:18:59,320 --> 01:19:05,602
were about to get him out of
Chinatown to avoid the red tape,

1228
01:19:05,637 --> 01:19:08,157
the inspections, the interventions.

1229
01:19:08,191 --> 01:19:11,574
But Wong Chung's tip enabled
the federal doctors

1230
01:19:11,608 --> 01:19:13,645
to prevent this evasion.

1231
01:19:16,061 --> 01:19:19,237
It was the first
time Blue had had the opportunity

1232
01:19:19,271 --> 01:19:22,827
to examine a living patient.

1233
01:19:22,861 --> 01:19:25,553
Until now, the Chinese had never trusted

1234
01:19:25,588 --> 01:19:27,486
the MHS enough to cooperate.

1235
01:19:27,521 --> 01:19:32,181
Blue was able to isolate the man
and question him

1236
01:19:32,215 --> 01:19:34,942
about his contacts to hopefully learn

1237
01:19:34,977 --> 01:19:37,496
how the disease was being spread.

1238
01:19:39,533 --> 01:19:42,674
Thanks to Wong Chung's quiet diligence,

1239
01:19:42,708 --> 01:19:45,677
Chinatown was starting to open up.

1240
01:19:45,711 --> 01:19:50,130
Cases that had formerly
been hidden or misdiagnosed

1241
01:19:50,164 --> 01:19:52,546
were coming to light,

1242
01:19:52,580 --> 01:19:56,136
leading to a wave of ten more
confirmed diagnoses.

1243
01:20:01,555 --> 01:20:04,351
I am working like a Trojan.

1244
01:20:04,385 --> 01:20:07,941
and I trust that my labors
will be rewarded.

1245
01:20:07,975 --> 01:20:11,565
We are still working quietly,

1246
01:20:11,599 --> 01:20:16,604
avoiding friction with
the state or the Chinese.

1247
01:20:16,639 --> 01:20:18,192
Rupert Blue.

1248
01:20:20,781 --> 01:20:22,369
He soon finds more and more victims.

1249
01:20:22,403 --> 01:20:23,784
He sees living victims.

1250
01:20:23,819 --> 01:20:29,859
He sees more victims quickly
before they can be hidden away.

1251
01:20:29,894 --> 01:20:33,898
So he starts realizing
the scope of the problem.

1252
01:20:33,932 --> 01:20:36,003
So, Wong Chung

1253
01:20:36,038 --> 01:20:39,627
played a pivotal role, and
for this he took many risks.

1254
01:20:42,907 --> 01:20:46,669
The state doctors who denied
the plague existence

1255
01:20:46,703 --> 01:20:50,017
may have tipped Chinatown gangsters

1256
01:20:50,052 --> 01:20:52,192
that Wong Chung was a collaborator,

1257
01:20:52,226 --> 01:20:54,125
a traitor to his community.

1258
01:20:55,643 --> 01:20:58,094
Not that long after,
someone tried to kill him.

1259
01:20:59,716 --> 01:21:01,166
And he had to run for his life,
essentially.

1260
01:21:02,616 --> 01:21:07,897
It took the intervention of Washington,

1261
01:21:07,932 --> 01:21:11,211
and only then was Wong Chung secure

1262
01:21:11,245 --> 01:21:13,385
to go about his medical rounds
with the doctors.

1263
01:21:17,148 --> 01:21:20,668
For 18 months,
Blue, like Kinyoun before him,

1264
01:21:20,703 --> 01:21:23,879
had been confounded by the
low number of fatalities,

1265
01:21:23,913 --> 01:21:27,089
but neither man had had the full picture.

1266
01:21:28,953 --> 01:21:30,437
Blue began to realize

1267
01:21:30,471 --> 01:21:33,198
that white doctors throughout
San Francisco,

1268
01:21:33,233 --> 01:21:34,682
bowing to political pressure,

1269
01:21:34,717 --> 01:21:37,616
were deliberately misdiagnosing cases

1270
01:21:37,651 --> 01:21:41,103
in order to minimize actual numbers.

1271
01:21:43,036 --> 01:21:47,143
Scant courtesy, singular apathy,

1272
01:21:47,178 --> 01:21:50,250
and, in the end, interference,

1273
01:21:50,284 --> 01:21:52,459
have characterized the state health board

1274
01:21:52,493 --> 01:21:56,808
at a time of grave public peril.

1275
01:21:56,842 --> 01:21:58,189
Eradication of the disease

1276
01:21:58,223 --> 01:22:01,882
would be entirely out of the question,

1277
01:22:01,917 --> 01:22:05,851
and the danger of an
indefinite stay is enhanced.

1278
01:22:05,886 --> 01:22:08,440
Rupert Blue.

1279
01:22:10,822 --> 01:22:13,204
By the fall of 1902,

1280
01:22:13,238 --> 01:22:17,277
the number of officially
diagnosed cases had tripled.

1281
01:22:20,590 --> 01:22:23,386
At the annual meeting of state
and local health boards

1282
01:22:23,421 --> 01:22:25,354
in New Haven, Connecticut,

1283
01:22:25,388 --> 01:22:29,875
San Francisco was all everyone
talked about.

1284
01:22:29,910 --> 01:22:35,502
California officials continued
to deny that the plague existed,

1285
01:22:35,536 --> 01:22:39,437
in direct contradiction to the
MHS and national papers.

1286
01:22:42,371 --> 01:22:48,480
Other state boards of
health started issuing censure votes

1287
01:22:48,515 --> 01:22:53,244
and statements of condemnation
against the state of California,

1288
01:22:53,278 --> 01:22:58,042
against Governor Gage,
against the denial of plague.

1289
01:22:58,076 --> 01:23:02,632
And some radicals even demanded

1290
01:23:02,667 --> 01:23:07,396
that the Navy transfer centers
be moved north to Seattle.

1291
01:23:08,949 --> 01:23:10,606
Well, this was serious.

1292
01:23:10,640 --> 01:23:15,059
San Francisco did not want
to risk such a loss of power.

1293
01:23:16,750 --> 01:23:18,510
At this point,

1294
01:23:18,545 --> 01:23:20,996
the denial of plague became costly.

1295
01:23:23,446 --> 01:23:26,070
California had run out of options.

1296
01:23:26,104 --> 01:23:30,039
It was time to face it, and
clean it out, and stamp it out.

1297
01:23:32,593 --> 01:23:35,079
The responsibility
of controlling the plague

1298
01:23:35,113 --> 01:23:37,012
rested squarely on Blue's shoulders.

1299
01:23:39,497 --> 01:23:40,912
Blue's boxing

1300
01:23:40,946 --> 01:23:43,501
taught him how to bob and weave,

1301
01:23:43,535 --> 01:23:44,916
size up his opponents,

1302
01:23:44,950 --> 01:23:47,815
anticipating their next move,

1303
01:23:47,850 --> 01:23:50,025
put an edge on his strategic approach.

1304
01:23:52,096 --> 01:23:56,065
Now, he stared
at his map for the hundredth time.

1305
01:23:56,100 --> 01:24:00,483
Every single block in Chinatown
had had a confirmed case.

1306
01:24:03,383 --> 01:24:05,764
But in the previous September,

1307
01:24:05,799 --> 01:24:08,560
a white washerwoman with
no connection to the district

1308
01:24:08,595 --> 01:24:12,771
had died of plague,
and she lived a block away.

1309
01:24:15,326 --> 01:24:18,156
It dawned on Blue
he'd been ignoring something

1310
01:24:18,191 --> 01:24:21,194
that had been right in front
of him the entire time.

1311
01:24:23,851 --> 01:24:26,095
The mystery of why the plague

1312
01:24:26,130 --> 01:24:28,753
had decimated Europe
and Asia for centuries

1313
01:24:28,787 --> 01:24:32,170
was finally beginning to unravel.

1314
01:24:36,830 --> 01:24:39,315
For us kids,

1315
01:24:39,350 --> 01:24:42,456
one of the great pastimes was
just fishing off

1316
01:24:42,491 --> 01:24:47,323
the piers, which ran almost
right up against Chinatown.

1317
01:24:48,566 --> 01:24:51,500
And ships that were moored to the docks,

1318
01:24:51,534 --> 01:24:53,260
they had these huge ropes.

1319
01:24:55,159 --> 01:24:57,022
You would see rats.

1320
01:24:57,057 --> 01:24:58,679
Rats just coming from the ships

1321
01:24:58,714 --> 01:25:00,336
and coming down those ropes.

1322
01:25:02,062 --> 01:25:04,133
And some of them would just fall
in the water.

1323
01:25:04,168 --> 01:25:07,102
Others were able to find their
way onto the docks.

1324
01:25:08,862 --> 01:25:12,210
They scurried, they were fast,
and they were quick.

1325
01:25:20,115 --> 01:25:22,358
Rats are biological marvels in many ways

1326
01:25:22,393 --> 01:25:24,636
because they can survive almost anything.

1327
01:25:24,671 --> 01:25:27,225
And they can breed incredibly quickly.

1328
01:25:28,916 --> 01:25:31,643
And a single pair of rats,

1329
01:25:31,678 --> 01:25:34,198
left to reproduce unhampered,

1330
01:25:34,232 --> 01:25:38,478
would become 1,500 in a year.

1331
01:25:41,791 --> 01:25:46,244
In his lab, Blue and his
men had discovered plague germs

1332
01:25:46,279 --> 01:25:50,179
in dead rats that they had dissected.

1333
01:25:50,214 --> 01:25:52,940
He was now struck by the possibility

1334
01:25:52,975 --> 01:25:56,358
that rats themselves
might somehow spread the disease

1335
01:25:56,392 --> 01:25:59,292
as they roamed the city,

1336
01:25:59,326 --> 01:26:01,949
though he still had no idea how.

1337
01:26:04,055 --> 01:26:05,815
And he realizes

1338
01:26:05,850 --> 01:26:07,783
the only way we're going
to save San Francisco

1339
01:26:07,817 --> 01:26:09,750
is if we kill as many rats as possible.

1340
01:26:09,785 --> 01:26:12,995
So, they focus on rat eradication.

1341
01:26:16,136 --> 01:26:19,070
Thanks to Wong Chung's prior outreach,

1342
01:26:19,104 --> 01:26:21,486
the Chinese Six Companies now agreed

1343
01:26:21,521 --> 01:26:23,385
that all Chinatown businesses

1344
01:26:23,419 --> 01:26:25,835
would work with health authorities.

1345
01:26:25,870 --> 01:26:29,494
"People should not be frightened.

1346
01:26:29,529 --> 01:26:32,117
"These physicians are very kind
and gentle.

1347
01:26:32,152 --> 01:26:37,226
Their main emphasis is to go
after the rats."

1348
01:26:39,124 --> 01:26:41,265
"Chung Sai Yat Po Daily."

1349
01:26:45,061 --> 01:26:48,996
The state was assigned to hire inspectors.

1350
01:26:49,031 --> 01:26:50,791
The city would lay traps

1351
01:26:50,826 --> 01:26:54,347
and poisoned bait for rats.

1352
01:26:54,381 --> 01:26:56,003
And they tried to get

1353
01:26:56,038 --> 01:26:59,041
all the citizens involved in
rat collection.

1354
01:26:59,075 --> 01:27:03,045
So they offered 10 cents a rat,

1355
01:27:03,079 --> 01:27:05,012
even 50 cents for a breeding female.

1356
01:27:05,047 --> 01:27:06,635
So, you can imagine this is quite a sum.

1357
01:27:06,669 --> 01:27:11,881
And people got involved in
bringing in rats.

1358
01:27:14,298 --> 01:27:15,368
Blue starts to look

1359
01:27:15,402 --> 01:27:19,682
for where are rats living.

1360
01:27:19,717 --> 01:27:22,271
Let's create as few nesting
spots for a rat as possible.

1361
01:27:22,306 --> 01:27:26,896
Wooden sidewalks provide so many
places for rats to nest.

1362
01:27:26,931 --> 01:27:31,556
So he rips those out and
let's have concrete sidewalks.

1363
01:27:35,629 --> 01:27:40,427
At the same time, let's tear
down these remnants of the past,

1364
01:27:40,462 --> 01:27:43,016
buildings that were still up
from the gold rush era.

1365
01:27:45,329 --> 01:27:49,091
And let's have more modern
buildings in their place.

1366
01:27:54,096 --> 01:27:56,754
By the spring of 1905,

1367
01:27:56,788 --> 01:27:59,032
Chinatown was almost completely renovated.

1368
01:28:01,068 --> 01:28:05,935
Blue's team was dismantled, its job done,

1369
01:28:05,970 --> 01:28:09,353
and he was sent to his
new posting in Virginia.

1370
01:28:11,700 --> 01:28:15,876
With no new cases
being reported in over a year,

1371
01:28:15,911 --> 01:28:18,500
as far as everyone was concerned,

1372
01:28:18,534 --> 01:28:20,778
the plague was finally under control.

1373
01:28:23,159 --> 01:28:27,578
Out of the official tally of
119 confirmed cases,

1374
01:28:27,612 --> 01:28:30,097
104 victims were Asian,

1375
01:28:30,132 --> 01:28:32,893
and 15 were non-Asian.

1376
01:28:35,310 --> 01:28:38,278
I think it's fair
to say that the true death toll

1377
01:28:38,313 --> 01:28:41,108
is probably ten times as much,
if not more.

1378
01:28:43,179 --> 01:28:47,391
It was more than likely
the accurate number of plague cases

1379
01:28:47,425 --> 01:28:49,116
were under-reported

1380
01:28:49,151 --> 01:28:51,187
because they were entirely

1381
01:28:51,222 --> 01:28:53,362
racially focused on Asian people.

1382
01:29:18,076 --> 01:29:23,081
Just after 5:00 a.m.,
April 18, 1906...

1383
01:29:25,118 --> 01:29:29,122
The city was wracked by
a massive earthquake.

1384
01:29:31,262 --> 01:29:35,024
It would have been
7.9 on the Richter scale,

1385
01:29:35,059 --> 01:29:38,303
an extremely dangerous earthquake,

1386
01:29:38,338 --> 01:29:40,823
particularly in a city of unreinforced

1387
01:29:40,858 --> 01:29:42,791
brick and mortar buildings
that simply crumbled.

1388
01:29:48,072 --> 01:29:51,938
Buildings were pancaked, floors collapsed.

1389
01:29:53,664 --> 01:29:55,148
The city was ablaze,

1390
01:29:55,182 --> 01:29:58,910
water mains were broken.

1391
01:29:58,945 --> 01:30:03,121
So, the water reservoirs were
not available to fight fires.

1392
01:30:03,156 --> 01:30:07,022
In a desperate attempt to stop
the advancing flames,

1393
01:30:07,056 --> 01:30:11,060
the city resorted to setting
strategic charges

1394
01:30:11,095 --> 01:30:13,787
to keep the fire from jumping.

1395
01:30:15,410 --> 01:30:16,790
That helped a little bit,

1396
01:30:16,825 --> 01:30:21,830
but some ne'er-do-wells started
dynamiting Chinatown

1397
01:30:21,864 --> 01:30:23,348
indiscriminately,

1398
01:30:23,383 --> 01:30:25,212
destroying buildings even further.

1399
01:30:28,802 --> 01:30:32,979
More than 80%
of San Francisco was destroyed,

1400
01:30:33,013 --> 01:30:36,569
including virtually all of Chinatown.

1401
01:30:40,055 --> 01:30:44,024
There were 3,000 people killed outright.

1402
01:30:44,059 --> 01:30:47,131
Nearly a quarter million injured,

1403
01:30:47,165 --> 01:30:49,547
hundreds of thousands homeless.

1404
01:30:52,792 --> 01:30:55,484
And you had refugees who suddenly

1405
01:30:55,519 --> 01:30:58,142
have to live in places like
Golden Gate Park

1406
01:30:58,176 --> 01:31:00,627
or other makeshift camps.

1407
01:31:03,319 --> 01:31:05,563
People were living out of tents.

1408
01:31:05,598 --> 01:31:08,359
People were living in a village
of earthquake cottages

1409
01:31:08,393 --> 01:31:10,982
built by the Red Cross.

1410
01:31:14,365 --> 01:31:18,611
The Army and Red Cross
handed out crackers and canned milk.

1411
01:31:18,645 --> 01:31:21,752
But when word spread that no such aid

1412
01:31:21,786 --> 01:31:24,030
would be given to the Chinese,

1413
01:31:24,064 --> 01:31:27,654
the community once again turned
to its own devices.

1414
01:31:32,107 --> 01:31:34,143
Four years earlier,

1415
01:31:34,178 --> 01:31:38,527
merchant Lew Hing had moved away
from San Francisco.

1416
01:31:38,562 --> 01:31:43,912
Lew Hing decided
to open a cannery in Oakland,

1417
01:31:43,946 --> 01:31:45,845
away from San Francisco.

1418
01:31:48,572 --> 01:31:53,266
Having been tired of being
harassed by the white media,

1419
01:31:53,300 --> 01:31:57,477
having had to compete against
the white canneries

1420
01:31:57,512 --> 01:31:59,548
that had formed a cartel

1421
01:31:59,583 --> 01:32:01,930
to try and drive all the
independent canneries

1422
01:32:01,964 --> 01:32:05,140
out of business,

1423
01:32:05,174 --> 01:32:06,866
and particularly targeted Lew Hing

1424
01:32:06,900 --> 01:32:09,903
because he had become such a
force in the cannery business.

1425
01:32:14,149 --> 01:32:17,566
When the earthquake hit on April 18,

1426
01:32:17,601 --> 01:32:19,982
the Chinese in San Francisco,
they were refused

1427
01:32:20,017 --> 01:32:27,507
by the white relief agencies
and had no place to go.

1428
01:32:27,542 --> 01:32:30,337
And so many of the Chinese came
to a very small

1429
01:32:30,372 --> 01:32:33,306
Chinese settlement in Oakland

1430
01:32:33,340 --> 01:32:37,344
where my great-grandfather,
who had some vacant areas

1431
01:32:37,379 --> 01:32:38,932
around his cannery,

1432
01:32:38,967 --> 01:32:44,110
he then hired people to cook,

1433
01:32:44,144 --> 01:32:48,701
and was able to feed thousands
of the Chinese who came over.

1434
01:32:56,260 --> 01:32:59,815
San Francisco
was staggering to regain its footing

1435
01:32:59,850 --> 01:33:02,197
amidst the devastation.

1436
01:33:03,647 --> 01:33:05,372
And the fallout continued to escalate.

1437
01:33:08,168 --> 01:33:11,551
You had instant problems with sanitation.

1438
01:33:11,586 --> 01:33:13,208
If you didn't die from the earthquake,

1439
01:33:13,242 --> 01:33:14,899
or die from the fire,

1440
01:33:14,934 --> 01:33:16,798
you might die from diphtheria or smallpox

1441
01:33:16,832 --> 01:33:18,144
or all these other diseases

1442
01:33:18,178 --> 01:33:21,078
that could rear their head very quickly.

1443
01:33:21,112 --> 01:33:23,045
With the sewer pipes ruptured,

1444
01:33:23,080 --> 01:33:25,738
rats, including plague-infected ones,

1445
01:33:25,772 --> 01:33:28,223
were released into the city to feast

1446
01:33:28,257 --> 01:33:31,329
on the uncollected refuse,
and breed in the ruins.

1447
01:33:32,537 --> 01:33:33,918
So once again,

1448
01:33:33,953 --> 01:33:37,025
there was a resurgence of rats
and rat-born plague.

1449
01:33:39,165 --> 01:33:42,064
Thirteen months after the earthquake,

1450
01:33:42,099 --> 01:33:45,792
San Francisco had its first
plague death in three years.

1451
01:33:47,242 --> 01:33:49,727
By summer, there were six more.

1452
01:33:49,762 --> 01:33:52,385
Wyman immediately wired Blue,

1453
01:33:52,419 --> 01:33:55,664
and ordered him to return
to San Francisco.

1454
01:33:58,425 --> 01:34:01,394
On this otherwise
unassuming residential street

1455
01:34:01,428 --> 01:34:05,640
in a Victorian house, Dr. Blue
set up his new headquarters,

1456
01:34:05,674 --> 01:34:09,022
and from there, he ran his command center.

1457
01:34:11,646 --> 01:34:13,337
The problem they find very quickly

1458
01:34:13,371 --> 01:34:16,685
is that plague is no longer
a Chinatown problem,

1459
01:34:16,720 --> 01:34:18,687
it's a San Francisco problem.

1460
01:34:20,275 --> 01:34:22,587
In stark contrast to the early days,

1461
01:34:22,622 --> 01:34:26,591
there was now only one Chinese casualty:

1462
01:34:26,626 --> 01:34:29,698
the president of
the Chinese Six Companies.

1463
01:34:29,733 --> 01:34:32,494
And that's when Blue starts hearing

1464
01:34:32,528 --> 01:34:34,703
from white physicians who say,

1465
01:34:34,738 --> 01:34:38,086
"Perhaps I have seen plague cases before,

1466
01:34:38,120 --> 01:34:40,502
"and I just thought it was pneumonia.

1467
01:34:40,536 --> 01:34:41,814
"Or actually, maybe I knew it was plague

1468
01:34:41,848 --> 01:34:43,539
and I didn't want to admit it."

1469
01:34:43,574 --> 01:34:46,301
And this kind of solidifies for Blue

1470
01:34:46,335 --> 01:34:49,994
this was a disease of the environment.

1471
01:34:50,029 --> 01:34:54,102
Now bubonic plague began to emerge

1472
01:34:54,136 --> 01:34:58,485
in all sorts of different
communities across the Bay Area.

1473
01:34:58,520 --> 01:35:02,075
And people began to realize that
anyone could get bubonic plague.

1474
01:35:04,802 --> 01:35:07,529
Blue set up a special workplace

1475
01:35:07,563 --> 01:35:10,118
dedicated to the grisly task at hand.

1476
01:35:11,567 --> 01:35:12,948
In back of

1477
01:35:12,983 --> 01:35:15,744
the federal headquarters was an
annex to the building

1478
01:35:15,779 --> 01:35:16,987
that became known as the Rattery.

1479
01:35:18,782 --> 01:35:21,577
And the Rattery was essentially
a coroner's lab,

1480
01:35:21,612 --> 01:35:24,097
a forensic lab, just for rats.

1481
01:35:26,582 --> 01:35:30,241
That's where all
the rat carcasses were brought.

1482
01:35:30,276 --> 01:35:34,314
And it's just rat after rat
that's dissected and opened up

1483
01:35:34,349 --> 01:35:37,179
and examined for signs of the plague.

1484
01:35:37,214 --> 01:35:38,663
And they would chart, you know,

1485
01:35:38,698 --> 01:35:40,355
what percentage of rats are infected.

1486
01:35:42,598 --> 01:35:46,913
By the fall, there
were 30 new plague deaths.

1487
01:35:46,948 --> 01:35:49,813
Blue and his men stepped up
their campaign,

1488
01:35:49,847 --> 01:35:52,091
killing more than 13,000 rats a week.

1489
01:35:53,333 --> 01:35:56,164
Throughout, he kept trying out new ways

1490
01:35:56,198 --> 01:35:59,270
to determine how the disease
was spreading through the city.

1491
01:36:02,757 --> 01:36:04,862
They even took it a step further

1492
01:36:04,897 --> 01:36:08,693
and tried to analyze migratory patterns.

1493
01:36:08,728 --> 01:36:11,766
They wanted to find out where
the rats originated

1494
01:36:11,800 --> 01:36:14,838
and where they traveled.

1495
01:36:14,872 --> 01:36:16,598
So, they devised a program

1496
01:36:16,632 --> 01:36:19,946
that came to be nicknamed
the rainbow rats,

1497
01:36:19,981 --> 01:36:23,018
and they got a group of healthy,
active rats

1498
01:36:23,053 --> 01:36:25,434
and dyed them red, green, or blue,

1499
01:36:25,469 --> 01:36:27,264
depending upon what district
they were from,

1500
01:36:27,298 --> 01:36:28,575
and turned them loose.

1501
01:36:28,610 --> 01:36:31,578
Then they would try to catch
them at the other end

1502
01:36:31,613 --> 01:36:35,859
and find out how they were spreading.

1503
01:36:35,893 --> 01:36:37,515
And, of course,

1504
01:36:37,550 --> 01:36:39,690
when the raucous local press found out,

1505
01:36:39,724 --> 01:36:41,519
they just had a field day.

1506
01:36:43,867 --> 01:36:46,801
The newspapers
mock them for this immediately.

1507
01:36:46,835 --> 01:36:51,046
It almost sounds like something
out of Dr. Seuss.

1508
01:36:51,081 --> 01:36:55,188
And Blue shrinks very quickly
from this public mockery.

1509
01:36:55,223 --> 01:36:56,155
He's not used to that.

1510
01:36:59,468 --> 01:37:01,470
But he continues to try.

1511
01:37:04,025 --> 01:37:07,960
Then a local case caught Blue's eye.

1512
01:37:07,994 --> 01:37:11,170
There was a physician who had perceived

1513
01:37:11,204 --> 01:37:14,414
a bad smell in his house.

1514
01:37:14,449 --> 01:37:17,797
The doctor decided he would chop
out a hole in the wall

1515
01:37:17,832 --> 01:37:21,283
and get to the source
of this unpleasant odor.

1516
01:37:21,318 --> 01:37:24,597
And there he found two dead rats.

1517
01:37:24,631 --> 01:37:28,601
And immediately, two members
of the family got the plague.

1518
01:37:31,742 --> 01:37:35,263
As Blue pondered the details of this case,

1519
01:37:35,297 --> 01:37:36,954
he recalled reading a recent report

1520
01:37:36,989 --> 01:37:39,094
from the British Plague Commission

1521
01:37:39,129 --> 01:37:41,545
that confirmed the results of a study

1522
01:37:41,579 --> 01:37:43,547
completed ten years earlier.

1523
01:37:46,446 --> 01:37:49,104
Pasteur Institute scientist

1524
01:37:49,139 --> 01:37:50,899
Paul Louis Simond did this experiment.

1525
01:37:50,934 --> 01:37:55,490
He put two rats in cages side
by side, separated by a grate.

1526
01:37:55,524 --> 01:37:57,147
They couldn't touch one another.

1527
01:37:57,181 --> 01:38:00,115
One rat was healthy, one rat was
sick with the plague.

1528
01:38:00,150 --> 01:38:03,360
And Simond made
the breakthrough observation

1529
01:38:03,394 --> 01:38:05,603
that when the plague rat died,

1530
01:38:05,638 --> 01:38:08,572
the fleas jumped to the side
of the healthy rat

1531
01:38:08,606 --> 01:38:10,470
for their next blood meal.

1532
01:38:12,231 --> 01:38:16,131
Bubonic plague
is transmitted by Yersinia pestis.

1533
01:38:16,166 --> 01:38:21,516
The flea itself is really
the host of Yersinia pestis.

1534
01:38:21,550 --> 01:38:25,658
And when it seeks a blood meal
on its natural host,

1535
01:38:25,692 --> 01:38:27,902
it regurgitates its bacteria

1536
01:38:27,936 --> 01:38:30,559
and transmits plague.

1537
01:38:33,114 --> 01:38:36,393
And it's only when its own host dies,

1538
01:38:36,427 --> 01:38:37,704
the flea seeks another warm body,

1539
01:38:37,739 --> 01:38:44,366
a rat, or if a human comes by,
they'll jump on.

1540
01:38:44,401 --> 01:38:47,231
It senses that there's something
warm here.

1541
01:38:47,266 --> 01:38:48,232
"I don't care what it is."

1542
01:38:50,303 --> 01:38:51,615
And then they'll bite.

1543
01:38:51,649 --> 01:38:55,239
They'll try to feed, because it's hungry.

1544
01:38:55,274 --> 01:38:56,965
So, the cause of the transmission

1545
01:38:57,000 --> 01:38:59,726
between rats and human was the flea.

1546
01:39:02,074 --> 01:39:03,834
Blue was thunderstruck

1547
01:39:03,868 --> 01:39:05,180
by the realization

1548
01:39:05,215 --> 01:39:07,355
that fleas played the primary role

1549
01:39:07,389 --> 01:39:08,804
in transmitting the disease.

1550
01:39:11,083 --> 01:39:15,742
Rats, he now understood,
were only agents of the epidemic

1551
01:39:15,777 --> 01:39:19,505
because of the insects in their fur.

1552
01:39:19,539 --> 01:39:22,301
And pieces fell into place:

1553
01:39:22,335 --> 01:39:24,544
the peaks of the outbreak lined up

1554
01:39:24,579 --> 01:39:27,099
with the flea's active season.

1555
01:39:27,133 --> 01:39:33,139
The baffling on-again, off-again
pattern became crystal clear.

1556
01:39:33,174 --> 01:39:36,625
So, the bubonic plague bacilla

1557
01:39:36,660 --> 01:39:39,974
was best conveyed by fleas
on rats biting humans.

1558
01:39:41,182 --> 01:39:45,358
That transmission was the most
important thing.

1559
01:39:45,393 --> 01:39:49,086
So, the eradication of rats
would be pretty significant.

1560
01:39:51,744 --> 01:39:54,712
As the city continued to rebuild,

1561
01:39:54,747 --> 01:39:59,131
Blue knew that public support
for rat extermination was solid.

1562
01:40:00,546 --> 01:40:05,413
Still, without full buy-in
from the entire community,

1563
01:40:05,447 --> 01:40:09,175
the stream of rats
would continue unchecked.

1564
01:40:09,210 --> 01:40:12,661
It was time for extreme measures.

1565
01:40:12,696 --> 01:40:14,870
Rupert Blue the strategist

1566
01:40:14,905 --> 01:40:16,907
understood he needed both
a carrot and a stick.

1567
01:40:16,941 --> 01:40:20,600
So fleet week was approaching.

1568
01:40:20,635 --> 01:40:26,365
But Blue told the city, if the
city isn't a healthful place,

1569
01:40:26,399 --> 01:40:31,577
I will tell the admiral that
it's not safe to land his ships.

1570
01:40:31,611 --> 01:40:35,339
This was terrible news.

1571
01:40:35,374 --> 01:40:37,755
It would be like canceling Christmas,

1572
01:40:37,790 --> 01:40:40,793
to have the Great White Fleet barred

1573
01:40:40,827 --> 01:40:43,278
from entering San Francisco, and worse yet

1574
01:40:43,313 --> 01:40:46,074
diverted to Seattle, the rival city,

1575
01:40:46,109 --> 01:40:48,007
would have been terrible.

1576
01:40:48,042 --> 01:40:52,598
So, all the city had to take part.

1577
01:40:54,358 --> 01:40:58,500
In 1908, the first truly grassroots,

1578
01:40:58,535 --> 01:41:04,092
fully public, multi-sector
health campaign was born.

1579
01:41:04,127 --> 01:41:06,957
Educating the populace on simple things

1580
01:41:06,991 --> 01:41:10,202
like the right way to dispose of garbage.

1581
01:41:11,962 --> 01:41:15,897
You have to seal your household
and security against rats.

1582
01:41:15,931 --> 01:41:18,382
They also educated greengrocers
on the right way

1583
01:41:18,417 --> 01:41:20,315
to store their wares

1584
01:41:20,350 --> 01:41:22,110
to keep the city streets clean.

1585
01:41:22,145 --> 01:41:27,011
And they informed essential
nature of sanitary precautions.

1586
01:41:28,737 --> 01:41:31,292
They start putting
notices in everybody's mailboxes.

1587
01:41:31,326 --> 01:41:36,331
Like, this is what you can do to
save yourself and save the city.

1588
01:41:36,366 --> 01:41:39,023
And little by little,

1589
01:41:39,058 --> 01:41:41,060
hundreds and hundreds of citizens

1590
01:41:41,095 --> 01:41:43,131
from all walks of life,

1591
01:41:43,166 --> 01:41:44,305
churches,

1592
01:41:44,339 --> 01:41:46,824
temples, lodges,

1593
01:41:46,859 --> 01:41:50,034
women's clubs, business groups,

1594
01:41:50,069 --> 01:41:52,244
everyone got on board and did their part.

1595
01:41:55,523 --> 01:41:57,628
San Francisco got to work.

1596
01:41:57,663 --> 01:42:02,461
Long-neglected sanitary
infrastructure was rebuilt.

1597
01:42:02,495 --> 01:42:07,949
A $4 million bond was issued
to renovate the sewer system,

1598
01:42:07,983 --> 01:42:12,333
and municipal garbage collection
and disposal were put in place.

1599
01:42:14,749 --> 01:42:17,476
By now, even the local newspapers

1600
01:42:17,510 --> 01:42:19,340
supported the sanitation drive

1601
01:42:19,374 --> 01:42:21,273
by publishing the names and addresses

1602
01:42:21,307 --> 01:42:23,413
of anyone who failed to comply.

1603
01:42:25,069 --> 01:42:26,830
In the end,

1604
01:42:26,864 --> 01:42:31,938
Blue managed to have more
than 20,000 houses inspected.

1605
01:42:31,973 --> 01:42:36,115
Untold numbers of rats were
either trapped or found dead.

1606
01:42:36,150 --> 01:42:38,324
But of the ones tested,

1607
01:42:38,359 --> 01:42:41,465
only 16 were found to be infected.

1608
01:42:41,500 --> 01:42:44,434
The outbreak was in retreat.

1609
01:42:46,470 --> 01:42:50,647
With backbreaking work,
and focused messaging,

1610
01:42:50,681 --> 01:42:53,788
Blue had finally rounded
the corner on the disease.

1611
01:43:04,281 --> 01:43:07,526
The question that had so long
tormented Kinyoun and Blue...

1612
01:43:07,560 --> 01:43:11,081
why hadn't the plague taken off
exponentially?

1613
01:43:11,115 --> 01:43:13,325
was at last answered.

1614
01:43:17,570 --> 01:43:22,057
It's so interesting that we had the germ

1615
01:43:22,092 --> 01:43:25,647
that was just as lethal
as during the Black Death.

1616
01:43:25,682 --> 01:43:30,169
The same germ that had ravaged
populations in China,

1617
01:43:30,204 --> 01:43:35,243
and India, what may have
saved the city in the end

1618
01:43:35,278 --> 01:43:37,487
from a much worse disaster

1619
01:43:37,521 --> 01:43:41,387
was a tiny part of an organ
inside of the little flea.

1620
01:43:43,527 --> 01:43:46,220
In places where you
had this explosion of plague,

1621
01:43:46,254 --> 01:43:48,912
there was a different species of rat flea.

1622
01:43:48,946 --> 01:43:51,501
Its anatomy was slightly different.

1623
01:43:51,535 --> 01:43:53,123
It would inject more of the plague bacilli

1624
01:43:53,157 --> 01:43:56,713
into whatever victim it bit.

1625
01:43:56,747 --> 01:44:01,718
In San Francisco, the flea bite
would inject a lower dose,

1626
01:44:01,752 --> 01:44:05,342
harder for it to become
a full-blown disease.

1627
01:44:06,826 --> 01:44:12,004
So, it was only this quirk of flea anatomy

1628
01:44:12,038 --> 01:44:14,040
that really prevented millions
of deaths in the U.S.

1629
01:44:17,458 --> 01:44:21,600
February 1908 saw the last diagnosed case

1630
01:44:21,634 --> 01:44:24,050
of bubonic plague.

1631
01:44:24,085 --> 01:44:26,605
For the first time in nearly eight years,

1632
01:44:26,639 --> 01:44:29,573
San Francisco could afford to celebrate.

1633
01:44:29,608 --> 01:44:31,679
And on May 6, 1908,

1634
01:44:31,713 --> 01:44:35,510
the Great White Fleet
sailed into San Francisco Bay.

1635
01:44:46,280 --> 01:44:48,696
People stood atop
every hill and promontory

1636
01:44:48,730 --> 01:44:50,111
to get a look at these

1637
01:44:50,145 --> 01:44:52,665
magnificent golden and white ships

1638
01:44:52,700 --> 01:44:54,288
that were sent by Theodore Roosevelt.

1639
01:44:55,841 --> 01:45:01,502
People were waving flags
and partying all week.

1640
01:45:01,536 --> 01:45:03,089
It celebrated not only

1641
01:45:03,124 --> 01:45:05,747
the Great White Fleet
and naval power, but also

1642
01:45:05,782 --> 01:45:08,681
the rebirth of San Francisco
as a healthful city.

1643
01:45:08,716 --> 01:45:12,720
And it was an effort in which
everyone had taken part.

1644
01:45:16,862 --> 01:45:22,074
Chinatown was celebrating its own victory.

1645
01:45:24,041 --> 01:45:26,803
Its near-total destruction
during the earthquake

1646
01:45:26,837 --> 01:45:28,529
had lured white speculators

1647
01:45:28,563 --> 01:45:32,360
eager to snap up the valuable land.

1648
01:45:34,569 --> 01:45:37,365
But they hadn't counted on the
fierce opposition

1649
01:45:37,400 --> 01:45:40,092
of Chinese merchants and associations,

1650
01:45:40,126 --> 01:45:43,371
who fought them tooth and nail

1651
01:45:43,406 --> 01:45:46,581
to control how they wanted
the district to be used.

1652
01:45:50,413 --> 01:45:51,931
We later learn, of course,

1653
01:45:51,966 --> 01:45:55,970
they were quite successful in turning

1654
01:45:56,004 --> 01:45:58,766
the fear of Chinatown

1655
01:45:58,800 --> 01:46:02,390
as a labyrinth of disease and immorality

1656
01:46:02,425 --> 01:46:06,912
into a kind of middle-class,
consumer tourist paradise.

1657
01:46:13,505 --> 01:46:17,198
On March 31, 1909,

1658
01:46:17,232 --> 01:46:20,339
Rupert Blue was honored with
a lavish ceremony

1659
01:46:20,374 --> 01:46:23,756
at the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill.

1660
01:46:26,966 --> 01:46:29,313
The dinner was rat-themed.

1661
01:46:29,348 --> 01:46:32,627
They had ice cream molds
in the shape of rat traps.

1662
01:46:32,662 --> 01:46:36,320
They drank wine punch from beakers

1663
01:46:36,355 --> 01:46:38,806
that were shaped like little trash cans.

1664
01:46:38,840 --> 01:46:40,877
It was kind of visual puns everywhere.

1665
01:46:43,017 --> 01:46:46,330
It was a darkly
humorous nod to the rats killed,

1666
01:46:46,365 --> 01:46:49,920
two million in all,
roughly five times the size

1667
01:46:49,955 --> 01:46:51,646
of San Francisco's human population.

1668
01:46:54,269 --> 01:46:57,445
And when he was
called to the dais to accept his gift

1669
01:46:57,480 --> 01:46:58,895
and the city's thanks,

1670
01:46:58,929 --> 01:47:02,070
some of Blue's old shyness came
flooding back and he said,

1671
01:47:02,105 --> 01:47:06,523
"It's difficult to speak
when one's heart is full."

1672
01:47:06,558 --> 01:47:10,596
After all his achievements,
he got rather tongue-tied.

1673
01:47:13,081 --> 01:47:17,361
It was likely Blue's
reticence arose from not just humility,

1674
01:47:17,396 --> 01:47:21,331
but a clear-eyed view of the
debt he owed his predecessor.

1675
01:47:21,365 --> 01:47:24,921
True, he had been able to clean
up San Francisco

1676
01:47:24,955 --> 01:47:28,821
and rid the city of its rats.

1677
01:47:28,856 --> 01:47:30,927
But Kinyoun was the one who insisted

1678
01:47:30,961 --> 01:47:35,656
that the problem even existed,
and at enormous personal cost.

1679
01:47:38,037 --> 01:47:40,626
Blue was seen as a hero,

1680
01:47:40,661 --> 01:47:43,111
and he continued on an upward trajectory.

1681
01:47:43,146 --> 01:47:44,492
You know, he became

1682
01:47:44,527 --> 01:47:47,840
the fourth Surgeon General of
the United States.

1683
01:47:47,875 --> 01:47:50,671
He was a very forward thinker.

1684
01:47:50,705 --> 01:47:52,983
He was somebody who advocated

1685
01:47:53,018 --> 01:47:56,780
for better treatment of the mentally ill.

1686
01:47:56,815 --> 01:47:59,507
He advocated for a national
health insurance at a time

1687
01:47:59,542 --> 01:48:03,062
when that was never heard of whatsoever.

1688
01:48:03,097 --> 01:48:05,893
He saw where the world was going.

1689
01:48:09,621 --> 01:48:14,349
Dr. Joseph Kinyoun's
ouster from San Francisco represented

1690
01:48:14,384 --> 01:48:17,180
a kind of failure of institutional

1691
01:48:17,214 --> 01:48:19,838
resistance and rivalries.

1692
01:48:19,872 --> 01:48:23,807
But he is remembered for bringing

1693
01:48:23,842 --> 01:48:26,810
state of the art methods

1694
01:48:26,845 --> 01:48:31,746
of diagnosing infectious
diseases to America.

1695
01:48:31,781 --> 01:48:34,646
He is remembered for helping found

1696
01:48:34,680 --> 01:48:37,234
the National Hygienic Laboratory,

1697
01:48:37,269 --> 01:48:40,824
the forerunner of our modern
National Institutes of Health,

1698
01:48:40,859 --> 01:48:44,448
for which he is posthumously recognized

1699
01:48:44,483 --> 01:48:47,072
as the first director of NIH.

1700
01:48:50,938 --> 01:48:54,666
The two men brought an end to the epidemic

1701
01:48:54,700 --> 01:48:58,532
using vastly different approaches.

1702
01:48:58,566 --> 01:49:02,363
Yet, it was the efforts of not
just Kinyoun and Blue,

1703
01:49:02,397 --> 01:49:04,676
but the marginalized community

1704
01:49:04,710 --> 01:49:07,679
that still managed to stand up
for its rights,

1705
01:49:07,713 --> 01:49:09,784
that led to a paradigm shift

1706
01:49:09,819 --> 01:49:13,132
in the way America viewed public health.

1707
01:49:18,759 --> 01:49:23,142
One of the things
we learned in San Francisco

1708
01:49:23,177 --> 01:49:26,111
is that intervention into a
disease pandemic

1709
01:49:26,145 --> 01:49:28,009
is a profoundly political act.

1710
01:49:30,115 --> 01:49:34,291
Science is one dimension

1711
01:49:34,326 --> 01:49:39,365
to provide answers and to
provide solutions,

1712
01:49:39,400 --> 01:49:41,333
but it was still subject
to human interpretation,

1713
01:49:41,367 --> 01:49:42,748
human implementation.

1714
01:49:46,234 --> 01:49:49,134
The question that came up in 1900

1715
01:49:49,168 --> 01:49:52,793
is what is the balance between
public necessity,

1716
01:49:52,827 --> 01:49:54,726
public health, and individual
rights and liberties?

1717
01:49:56,693 --> 01:49:58,695
And it was balanced in a terrible way.

1718
01:50:02,388 --> 01:50:06,634
Power-seeking politicians,

1719
01:50:06,669 --> 01:50:10,086
and misguided commercial greed
that takes precedence

1720
01:50:10,120 --> 01:50:13,745
over public health, all of that

1721
01:50:13,779 --> 01:50:18,301
delayed a solution in San Francisco.

1722
01:50:18,335 --> 01:50:21,649
In the end, we needed
collaboration and cooperation

1723
01:50:21,684 --> 01:50:25,204
by the federal,
state, and local governments,

1724
01:50:25,239 --> 01:50:27,862
participation by the citizenry,

1725
01:50:27,897 --> 01:50:32,660
understanding and acceptance of science.

1726
01:50:35,905 --> 01:50:40,461
Science is
implicated with the larger society.

1727
01:50:40,495 --> 01:50:44,154
In San Francisco, we actually
pressed science to do work

1728
01:50:44,189 --> 01:50:46,674
that it has no business doing.

1729
01:50:46,709 --> 01:50:48,469
You don't need science to tell us

1730
01:50:48,503 --> 01:50:51,679
that we should treat people
with dignity and love.

1731
01:50:51,714 --> 01:50:54,268
Science is a method of inquiry.

1732
01:50:54,302 --> 01:50:58,790
It knows a lot,
but there's always unknowns.

1733
01:50:58,824 --> 01:51:03,311
We had some worldviews
that were coming into big conflict

1734
01:51:03,346 --> 01:51:06,245
about how to think about science,

1735
01:51:06,280 --> 01:51:10,664
about how to deal with
a public health crisis,

1736
01:51:10,698 --> 01:51:15,289
how to not ascribe
a racial cause for the disease,

1737
01:51:15,323 --> 01:51:17,705
and diverting accountability.

1738
01:51:17,740 --> 01:51:20,294
But also to think about,

1739
01:51:20,328 --> 01:51:24,436
is it possible to protect myself
from disease?

1740
01:51:24,470 --> 01:51:27,094
Is it possible to eradicate disease?

1741
01:51:27,128 --> 01:51:30,614
And those are open questions.