He won the trust of San Franciscans by shifting the government's attack on the plague from the cool remove of the laboratory onto the streets, among the people it affected. When a second epidemic erupted five years later, the more self-possessed and charming Dr. He correctly diagnosed the plague, but because of his quarantine efforts, he was branded an alarmist and a racist, and was forced from his post. An intellectually astute but autocratic scientist, Kinyoun lacked the diplomatic skill to manage the public health crisis successfully.

Initially in charge of the government's response was Quarantine Officer Dr.

Two months later, the first human case of bubonic plague surfaced in Chinatown. Though the ship passed inspection, some of her stowaways-infected rats-escaped detection and made their way into the city's sewer system. Uphill they scurried, insinuating themselves into the heart of the city.'The plague first sailed into San Francisco on the steamer Australia, on the day after New Year's in 1900. The rats slipped out of their shadowy holds, scuttled down the rigging, and alighted on the wharf. Sailing from China and Hawaii into the unbridged arms of the Golden Gate, it arrived aboard vessels bearing rich cargoes, hopeful immigrants, and infected vermin. Across the Pacific came an unexpected import, bubonic plague. But the harbor would not be safe for long. The wharf bristled with masts and smokestacks from as many as a thousand sailing ships and steamers arriving each year. It had a pompous new skyline with skyscrapers nearly twenty stories tall, grand hotels, and Victorian mansions on Nob Hill.

'San Francisco in 1900 was a Gold Rush boomtown settling into a gaudy middle age.

The Barbary Plague by Marilyn Chase