Rating: 
Summary: Gripping and Timely
Review: Ms. Chase has mixed a veritable cauldron of explosive subjects about which to write something fresh: politics and race in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, the just emerging discoveries about plague vectors, topped off with brand new research into the characters who stood at the center of an outbreak of plague in San Francisco's Chinatown. She recounts how the early cases were misdiagnosed or dismissed in order to prevent damage to the city's reputation, and while the descriptions of individual cases is by its nature repetitive, the story is made all the more powerful as the epidemic's toll mounts and, finally, subsides. Ms. Chase describes the anti-rat campaign and its role in beating the plague, and pinpoints the seemingly minor difference in flea types that saved us from a much worse outbreak. Ms. Chase scrupulously avoided the easy paths to sensationalism and chose to stick to the facts. For instance, she makes the point that it was evident that the number of plague victims was being undercounted due to sufferers (or bodies) being removed from the city, possibly in collusion with authorities, but steadfastly sticks only to the proven cases in proving the existence of an "epidemic". The epidemic may have been far worse than recorded. And coming just as we were avoiding travel to certain destinations because of SARS, her book is an outstanding reminder of the responsibility of public health authorities to place the public good above all else in matters of infectious disease. If you are interested in the early days of public health in the United States, or wish to draw lessons for the present, this book is a must read!
Rating:
Summary: excellent medical reporting and storytelling
Review: Plague is a fascinating subject because it is so utterly awful and so feared. Marilyn Chase's book not only explains this ancient (and current) disease, it is also a social history of San Francisco at the turn of the century. The disease first struck working-poor Chinese, and the rich white establishment wrongly figured they could stamp it out by being wretched to this minority population. When that didn't work, they denied that plague existed and impugned the public health doctor who kept insisting that it did.
Chase shows the official conspiracy--including the city's press--that not only kept information from the public but actively lied to San Franciscans. Ultimately, she shows that the battle to rid San Francisco of plague was won by persistence, diplomacy and sharing the nitty-gritty facts with the public.
Those who think the plague is a disease of the past, or at least of the Third World, might be interested to read the epilogue. It shows that plague is carried by rodents of the American West, and contains an account of a plague case in New Mexico in 2000.
Rating: 
Summary: The Black Death in Early San Francisco
Review: This book is not only a fascinating look into the origins of the bubonic plauge in early San Francisco, tracing the disease's trek from China through Hong Kong to Chinatown in Honolulu and spreading itself in the western frontier of California; it is a view of how racism and politics affected interfered with solution. When plague first appeared in San Francisco, it struck the Chinatown area the hardest, inflaming tensions between the whites and the immigrants. When Dr. Joseph Kinyoun threatened quaratine of the entire area, the businessmen and politicians rose against him, putting the city' s profitability before the public's health. His replacement, Rupert Blue, managed the plague clean-up campaign with much diplomacy and brought about sweeping changes that not only curbed the rise of the plague, but also enhanced the city's image.This book has it all -- poitical intrigue, racism, a disease out of control, heroes and villains. Sometimes non-fiction can be better than most novels, and in this case, it makes for a great book well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A plague story well told
Review: This new work, The Barbary Plague: The Black Death In Victorian San Francisco by Marilyn Chase will soon become the standard reference on this fascinating chapter in California history. It is the first book length study covering the two plague outbreaks which visited San Francisco between 1900 and 1909, and it stands alone in its ability to tell this story. Chase�s writing is wonderfully easy to read and breathes life into a history forgotten to all but a few medical historians. In addition to the excellent writing, Chase�s research into her subject is on par with the best academic standards. She not only has an expert�s grasp on the history but has brought the full force of her professional career as a science and medicine reporter with the Wall Street Journal to the telling of the tale. In The Barbary Plague Chase is able to tell the story of the two plague outbreaks from the perspective of the two United States public health officers most intimately associated with the story, Joseph J. Kinyoun, founder of the NIH, and Rubert Blue, who�s success in dealing with the 1907 plague outbreak in San Francisco lead to his elevation to the position of Surgeon General. Both men were sent by the federal government to San Francisco to fight the plague. Kinyoun�s career with the public health service was destroyed when his scientific professionalism clashed with the political machinery in California that was determined to bury the truth in 1900. Blue�s career, on the other hand, was lifted up to the heights by his ability to work the prevailing political winds of 1907 to his advantage. Chase asserts that Blue had greater political skill than Kinyoun and that their different fates prove this out. To a certain extent I think this is true, but there were other factors at play. The political climate that the two men worked in was substantially different. Kinyoun faced a hostile political landscaped financed by a defensive business community, lead by the Southern Pacific Railroad, trying to protect its profits. To defend itself California�s business community decided to deny the existence of plague. By the time Blue faced the epidemic, the business community had come to the realization that they could not hide from the outbreak and needed to meet it head on. Where Kinyoun faced extreme hostility, Blue was, in the end, given complete cooperation. Chase describes this change in political climate, but she doesn�t provide the reader with the full significance of its meaning to Kinyoun and Blue.. While this is an excellent book, it does have a few points where historians might quibble. For instance, Chase suggests that the plague was introduced to San Francisco via the rats abroad the ship Australia which arrived from Asia at the beginning of January 1900. The source for her proposition is a note in a letter written by Joseph Kinyoun to his uncle, Dr. Preston Bailhache, in August of 1900. In my own research on the topic, I had an "ahaa!" moment when I read Kinyoun�s suspicion about the Australia. The problem, from a historical or epidemiological perspective, is that there are so many other suspect rats from so many other ships arriving in San Francisco that it is impossible to prove. The plague pandemic had been spreading out of China since 1894. The United States public health service, then known as the Marine Hospital Service, had taken over San Francisco�s quarantine inspection in 1897 in anticipation of the plague�s arrival and had been on the lookout for three years when the first case in the city was confirmed. Kinyoun certainly never officially claimed that the Australia was the source of San Francisco�s plague. From an academic standpoint, other researchers who have read Kinyoun�s letter decided that his suspicion was unsubstantiated and would have to remain an interesting historical footnote. Chase and her publisher decided that it was tasty to be able to say that they had found that source of San Francisco�s epidemic, and it makes good reading to be sure. Quibbles aside, The Barbary Plague is peerless in its presentation of this amazing story. For history buffs and academics, Chase�s book sets the benchmark for telling the story of San Francisco�s brush with the Black Death.
Rating:
Summary: A plague story well told
Review: This new work, The Barbary Plague: The Black Death In Victorian San Francisco by Marilyn Chase will soon become the standard reference on this fascinating chapter in California history. It is the first book length study covering the two plague outbreaks which visited San Francisco between 1900 and 1909, and it stands alone in its ability to tell this story. Chase's writing is wonderfully easy to read and breathes life into a history forgotten to all but a few medical historians. In addition to the excellent writing, Chase's research into her subject is on par with the best academic standards. She not only has an expert's grasp on the history but has brought the full force of her professional career as a science and medicine reporter with the Wall Street Journal to the telling of the tale. In The Barbary Plague Chase is able to tell the story of the two plague outbreaks from the perspective of the two United States public health officers most intimately associated with the story, Joseph J. Kinyoun, founder of the NIH, and Rubert Blue, who's success in dealing with the 1907 plague outbreak in San Francisco lead to his elevation to the position of Surgeon General. Both men were sent by the federal government to San Francisco to fight the plague. Kinyoun's career with the public health service was destroyed when his scientific professionalism clashed with the political machinery in California that was determined to bury the truth in 1900. Blue's career, on the other hand, was lifted up to the heights by his ability to work the prevailing political winds of 1907 to his advantage. Chase asserts that Blue had greater political skill than Kinyoun and that their different fates prove this out. To a certain extent I think this is true, but there were other factors at play. The political climate that the two men worked in was substantially different. Kinyoun faced a hostile political landscaped financed by a defensive business community, lead by the Southern Pacific Railroad, trying to protect its profits. To defend itself California's business community decided to deny the existence of plague. By the time Blue faced the epidemic, the business community had come to the realization that they could not hide from the outbreak and needed to meet it head on. Where Kinyoun faced extreme hostility, Blue was, in the end, given complete cooperation. Chase describes this change in political climate, but she doesn't provide the reader with the full significance of its meaning to Kinyoun and Blue.. While this is an excellent book, it does have a few points where historians might quibble. For instance, Chase suggests that the plague was introduced to San Francisco via the rats abroad the ship Australia which arrived from Asia at the beginning of January 1900. The source for her proposition is a note in a letter written by Joseph Kinyoun to his uncle, Dr. Preston Bailhache, in August of 1900. In my own research on the topic, I had an "ahaa!" moment when I read Kinyoun's suspicion about the Australia. The problem, from a historical or epidemiological perspective, is that there are so many other suspect rats from so many other ships arriving in San Francisco that it is impossible to prove. The plague pandemic had been spreading out of China since 1894. The United States public health service, then known as the Marine Hospital Service, had taken over San Francisco's quarantine inspection in 1897 in anticipation of the plague's arrival and had been on the lookout for three years when the first case in the city was confirmed. Kinyoun certainly never officially claimed that the Australia was the source of San Francisco's plague. From an academic standpoint, other researchers who have read Kinyoun's letter decided that his suspicion was unsubstantiated and would have to remain an interesting historical footnote. Chase and her publisher decided that it was tasty to be able to say that they had found that source of San Francisco's epidemic, and it makes good reading to be sure. Quibbles aside, The Barbary Plague is peerless in its presentation of this amazing story. For history buffs and academics, Chase's book sets the benchmark for telling the story of San Francisco's brush with the Black Death.
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