JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR: SATURDAY MARCH 31ST, 1900

2020: DAY 7

SMH BRIEF NOTES

FEDERATION
 DELEGATES HARD AT WORK
- in lobbies of House of Commons to guarantee passage of Commonwealth Bill (Note to future: establishment of Commonwealth of Australia was not an act of self-determination by the potential nation but an issue debated remotely in the House of Commons) 

BUBONIC PLAGUE 


RECOMMENDATIONS OF BOARD OF HEALTH


PERIOD OF DETENTION OF CONTACTS


LITTLE BAY HOSPITAL


YESTERDAY'S CASES


PROPOSED ADDITIONAL QUARANTINE AREAS


PROPOSED RESUMPTION OF WHARFS  

MEETING AT PADDINGTON - formation of Paddington Sanitary Vigilance Committee


MUNICIPAL COUNCIL
Mayor: "if the council could only cause the people to be cleanly in their habits no trouble ...would come about.
- medical men's opinion

Erskine St, Sydney - Source: State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, FRIDAY MARCH 30TH, 1900

2020: DAY 6:

BUBONIC PLAGUE


TWO CASES YESTERDAY


DEATH OF A PATIENT


PROGRESS OF CLEANSING OPERATIONS
- optimistic report. Meeting to be held in Paddington to form citizens sanitary committee.
- 

A WALK THROUGH THE QUARANTINE AREA


HOW IT IS BEING CLEANSED


WHOLESALE SCAVENGING 
"Most of the public have the privilege of looking at the quarantined area of Sydney from the outside and in gazing on bonfires burning in the streets, or drays passing along on their way to the wharves. There is very little else to be seen. Yet if they were permitted to go inside and mix with the men at work they would become aware of a good deal that is instructive without being beautiful, and which is also offensive to the sense of smell...To pass along the streets one might see barrels of limewash, great watering cans filled with water boiling from the addition of sulphuric acid, and giving off stream as it boils, mud coming up from underground apartments, and men filling the same into drays. Yesterday the steamers of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade would also have been seen in Kent St with long lines of hose playing all over the street washing down the paved and guttered ways, and sending tons of water down Erskine and Margaret Sts into the harbour..."
- mud - "evil-smelling"
"It will hardly be credited, but there were dwellings in the areas which had no backyards at all because the space which was intended to serve for it was covered with a fowl house, a wood and coal shed, and perhaps a kitchen and laundry. Many of the yards...(After demolition) Sunlight has been let into the houses, there is an avenue of fresh air to enter without being tainted with the exhalations from decomposing kitchen refuse or warehouse waste....Before (whitewash) was applied a liberal application of carbolic acid solution or sulphuric acid was employed to kill any germs of disease which might have adhered to the stone or brick
- masonry is often out of perpendicular because of retaining walls to prevent slippages. something will need to be done. (tear down buildings because of structural unsoundness-> i.e. building and earth itself doesn't fit into ideal geometry.
- 

TAR BURNING IN THE STREETS
- suggestion of tar-burning as means of killing germs.
- 

INSTRUCTIONS TO HOUSEHOLDERS - 100,000 printed.
- 

NET FISHING IN THE HARBOUR
- Hawkesbury and Brisbane Water opened for fishing. No fish from Pt Jackson are on sale (The public is reassured)
- 

MUNICIPAL COUNCIL


DARLING HARBOUR WATER FRONTAGES
*- suggestion of resuming wharves. Much agreement in council. Hughes suggested that if part of city remodelled, plague would be a blessing in disguise. - " a magnificent opportunity which might never occur again." -> council should place scheme before govt. Council had existed under all sorts of difficulties and hamperings and had never received any assistance from Govt since 1879. Dr Graham said it wasn't the council's responsibility and it shouldn’t take initiative. Mayor - what is Harbours and Rivers Dept doing? They're responsible below high water mark.
- Motion passed recommending that govt resume frontages. Deputation to be sent to Premier.


QUARANTINE REGULATIONS - local govt announces precautions - Launceston, Albury, Brisbane, Goulburn, Kiama, Murwillumbah
- 

DARLING HARBOUR RESUMPTION
- Sydney Labour Council passed resolution urging govt. to resume privately-owned wharfs in Darling Harbour , to destroy and rebuild on grounds of their menace to health of workers and public.
- also asked for representation on Board of Health in view of Mayor's and Chamber of Commerce president's appointments.
- 

THE STATE OF NOUMEA - more cases no more deaths (The previous day, ref to death of numerous Kanakas but not from plague.
- 

THE SOUTHGATE DESTRUCTOR
- letter from company sec, saying that the gases emitted would be odourless and pure since destructor consumed all noxious gases and foul air.


HAFFKINE'S PROPHYLACTIC SERUM – ITS VALUE AS A PREVENTATIVE


COMMENTS BY THE INDIAN PLAGUE COMMISSION 
- report on last issue of The Lancet
- "the best results ... will only be obtained after an accurate method of standardisation has been devised." 

THE SPREAD OF PLAGUE AND ITS PREVENTION (letter to ed)
- till recently study of bacteria considered to be a fad and of no practical value. " and so I and others were not allowed to keep cultures of the plague bacilli for fear of some imaginary risk to the community. In the hands of experts such risks can scarcely be said to exist. These bacilli are kept in every properly equipped laboratory in Europe, and though naturally the risk is greatest to the person who works with them, there is no instance in which plague has attacked any investigator who understands the nature of his prisoner." Measures in place will effectually stamp out disease. (Language of war) - isolation, segregation, disinfection. Ref. to Koch's work on cholera in Marburg. The body is enemy or as territory invaded by enemy agents - > "The germs exist in the body but they may be permanently imprisoned. Still they may escape from the body in the excreta and precautions must be adopted to blockade these ports of possible exit and render these discharges free from danger.
- disputes flea theory because rat fleas and fleas that attack man are different.
- thinks isolation, segregation, disinfection better than widespread inoculation. 
- disputes value of Yersin's serum. 
- we can’t have much faith in the Board of Health or the council but we can in the medical officers who are exterminating the disease - and in Mr Lyne who has rendered valuable service. Let's hope there'll be a reorganisation in sanitary services so that Sydney ceases to be "one of the filthiest places int he southern hemisphere." W Camac Wilkinson, M.D. Lond. 

LETTER FROM PESTIS - warns of dangers from mosquitoes and money. While clothes of diseased person are burned, money is taken out of pockets and and continues in circulation. 

LETTER FROM J.S. COOPER - disputing Cremator's advice. Too much fire isn't a good thing.


Letter asking for crematorium. - > worried about risks from burying bodies
- editorial saying that outbreak has been greatly exaggerated. Disease is part and parcel of our daily lives, always has been: enteric fever, gaol fever, typhoid among miners on gold fields, deaths of combatants in South Africa (from smallpox and typhus) Travellers who visit the East and Europe must enter many spots where plague, smallpox, typhoid are prevalent ..."all these are rightly regarded as the ordinary risks of civilized life." So, take precautions but don't panic. And country people should still come for the Easter Show.,
- 

THE SITUATION
MAFEKING (still not relieved)

Margaret St, Sydney, Source: State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, THURSDAY, MARCH 29TH, 1900

2020: DAY 5

SMH:

Editorial: 
- although it's a good thing that a "small army of men (650)” is cleaning up the place it's unsatisfactory that it's been necessary for so long; the public should take on the wholesale scavenging until we have a clean city.


BUBONIC PLAGUE


ONE ADDITIONAL CASE
 TWO DEATHS


WORK IN THE QUARANTINED AREA
- 800 men now working, 1000 tons of rubbish removed from 1 block!
- population of quarantined area: about 800
- "reports have reached the outer world" suggesting inhabitants are thankful their places have been so thoroughly cleaned.
- Deputation to Ministers
Report by Under Secretary for Works


THE CLEANING OPERATIONS CARRIED OUT AND CONTEMPLATED
- led by W.M. Hughes - critical of council; it didn't act sooner; Govt needed to take over. (It wasnt first time that municipal council had been wiped out of existence and control of civic matters put in hands of 3 commissioners.
- until present system of patronage done away with, no justice possible as if property belonging to prominent men, it wasn't reported on. 


IDEA OF GREATER SYDNEY CANVASSED - petition from MP's and others
- Letter from AMG suggesting that a day of prayer be set aside.
*- 

DISCUSSION IN DRUMMOYNE COUNCIL
- suggesting resumption of Darling Harbour Foreshore to build new wharves with road and rail access. "Late" Premier had had this idea some yrs ago but hadn't received suport.


THE DARLING HARBOUR* SEWERAGE SYSTEM
- contract is let and two-thirds completed. If you want to hurry it, employ day labour.
_ 

MUNICIPAL COUNCIL
- question of charging for removal of rubbish. Decided not to because this would provide excuse for not doing it. 
- number of private lanes and ways in city in "anything but a sanitary state". Council officers "could only deal with them by a bold effort and actual trespass" (Private property as a device which prevented implementation of public safety)
- Board of Health Quarantine regulations being shoddily applied - persons were taken away from business premises and quarantined because they were plague stricken and identity as well as premises kept secret. When quarantined he could move in and out of quarantined areas as often as he liked.
- sanitary inspectors of council had been slipshod. Prosecutions should have happened ages ago.
- 

BURNING HOUSE REFUSE (letter from "Cremator" suggesting that circular be sent to households asking them to burn all household refuse. Fire destroys all germs of body, while burying does not.
-

ALDERMANIC INSPECTION OF A GARBAGE DESTRUCTOR.
- Southgate Garbage destructor at Lewisham nr railway bridge (has large chimney stack) was visited by great number of suburban mayors and aldermen. Company allowed them to view "the internal economy of the furnace" before dome completed. Mr Southgate explained how it worked" "The interesting plan by which the gases liberated from the garbage after first contact with the furnace fire pass up and down perpendicular flues inside the dome and at various points came again into contact with the heat, and are mainly consumed before finally making their exit in a greatly changed and rarefied form up the immense stack near at hand was lucidly shown. Several of the visitors clambered down into the building and closely investigated the structures..." More hype about capacity of destructor (sales pitch) - how much it could carry -> room for rubbish of more councils. "The locality is not likely to be prejudicially affected by the gases which are allowed to escape, and in any case the site is near the open canal for surface drainage running into Five Dock Bay on a low-level place where there is not much inducement for population to congregate. It is held that the gases which will be spread from the top of the stack in the air will be barely perceptible, especially when it is remembered that the stack is to be 96 feet high. “The gentlemen in attendance generally manifested an earnest desire to grasp the details of the destructor, so that they might be able to institute contracts" in their own areas.
- 

DREDGING ROZELLE BAY - its filthy state.
- 

VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AT THE GLEBE - meeting held tonight at Town Hall.

Kent St, from Margaret St - State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28TH, 1900

DAY 4:

Article by Samuel T Knaggs M.D. 
- panic is out of all proportion to gravity of case.

1898 1899

Cases of typhoid 3302 2783 

Scarlet fever: 6342 1389 

Diptheria 1493 741

Most prevalent complaint in colonies – consumption. 
Premier Lyne - telegram to Indian Viceroy asking for "a good plague expert" and one skilled in manufacture of plague serum. Also sent message, same day to Imperial authorities saying that peace in South Africa should not be concluded on terms other than absolute supremacy of British rule.


The Sydney Mail - plague now all-absorbing topic of conversation in Sydney, next to (but ahead of) the war. This week's Mail has 4 pages of pictures.
- editorial in favour of a Harbour Trust with powers to resume wharfs.


BUBONIC PLAGUE


NEW CASES YESTERDAY


STATEMENTS RESPECTING WORK DONE


THE EFFICACY OF INOCULATION
- McCredie (Consultant Engineer overseeing cleansing operations) living in area, lodged in Union Co's buildings.
- case of warehouse with 150 employees where 2 cases of plague occurred. - Distinction made b/w people working in a space and people living and sleeping in a space. Employees not quarantined; clearly too difficult. 
- steps to be taken to see that barriers not broken - extra police - so the people were simply ignoring them.
- Robinson, president of Chamber of Commerce, appointed to Board of Health because his advice would be invaluable to board in dealing with warehouses and other establishments.
- Suggested meeting of Parliament: 
- several MP's suggested that Parliament be convened "to deal with the plague". Ministers, however, reckon that existing law is sufficient. Lyne says he's too busy and that if Parliament were sitting, he wouldn't be able to do this work. Attorney General hopes that outbreak will arouse interest and call public attention to need for Harbour Trust.
- 

WORK IN THE QUARANTINE AREA


WHAT IS BEING DONE
- interviews with Mr McCredie and Ashburton-Thompson
- eager bureaucrat, zealous.
- Ashburton-Thompson : the stench caused by the stirring up of so much garbage was overpowering. Rubbish burnt in streets to help get rid of smell.
- Police withdrawn from suburbs to do quarantine duty. Protest from suburbs because of risk of infection
- At Circular Quay
- "There is no appearance of plague at the quay. On the contrary, all is stir, bustle and life."
- Fish Supply - more concern from fishermen.
- 

ESTABLISHMENT OF A HARBOUR TRUST
- Lane Cove Council critical of failure of Govt to do something years ago. More than 25 yrs ago Sydney Chamber of Commerce passed resolution urging action. Had they done it then they would now have a railway through western part of city and they wouldn't have had plague, he believed.
- Sydney Chamber of Commerce - same evening as Lane Cove meeting, special meeting of SCC decided to urge premier to set up harbour trust.


Rear, 50 Wexford St

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR - TUESDAY MARCH 27TH, 1900

30 cases of typhoid fever in Cobar, 12 in local hospital!


THE FISH SUPPLY - fishermen put out by ban on netting in Sydney Harbour until end of Sept. (and Hawkesbury and Brisbane Water) Demand for fish had fallen, even though it was Lent.

THE FISH MORTALITY
- fishermen blamed it on "red water" - peridinia (small, brown marine life) on surface; analysis suggested sewage to blame. No evidence of disinfectants.


PLAGUES IN HISTORY
- Naples, 1656 - 300,000 died in 5 mths.
London, 1665 - 68,596 out of 460,000, 2/3 of whom fled to avoid it.
1835, Cairo - 1/3 to 1/2 of population died.
1840, Dalmatia, 1841, Constantinople
1843-4, eastern part of Egypt
Since 1850 oscillated b/w east and west.
- Not til 1894 was "positive knowledge" of disease discovered.
Koch and Pasteur - "fathers" of bacteriology
Dr Kitasato (from Koch's lab) and Yersin (Pasteur's lab) - specific discoveries on plague
Plague - malignant polyadenitis -> septicaemia
Glands most commonly affected - groin, thigh -> then axilla and sometimes in neck.
- Death rate in Hong Kong , 1894: Chinese - 93.4%, Indians 77%, Japanese 60%, Eurasians, 100%, Europeans, 18.2%; small rate amongst Europeans because of European blood and stamina and to early treatment and confidence in European medical attendant.
- cause of infection still being discussed -> the ground may become so infected as to establish endemicity; rats catch it from miasmatic emanations from soil.
- Wharf labourers in Launceston strike over fears of catching plague. Tas. Govt. declares Sydney infected. Precautions in Brisbane

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR - MONDAY MARCH 26TH, 1900

BUBONIC PLAGUE


ACTION BY THE PREMIER AND THE MAYOR


THE INFECTED AREA


NOTICES TO CLEAN AND DISINFECT PREMISES
- Premier and Mayor part of board to deal with plague; also on board - Ashburton-Thompson, Chief Medical Officer; Mr Blackwell, City Engineer; Mr RRP Hickson, Under-Sec. to Works Dept. (Mr Getting, Health Dept. Sanitary inspector appointed next day to replace Ashburton-Thompson who was too busy) Disinfecting to be carried out under supervision of McCredie, under direction of Ashburton-Thompson 


A WALK ROUND THE QUARANTINE AREA


SOME OF THE SANITARY ARRANGEMENTS
- people walked to quarantine area to have a look across the barrier. Novelty, good spirits. Two restaurants had been taken over by govt., dispensing free meals. Three squads of police (120 in all) stationed in area.
- Detailed description of sanitary arrangements from WSB report on 57 houses.
- Smell of disinfectants pronounced
- able-bodied men in quarantine area to be offered work cleansing wharfs and premises.
- Abstracts of Board of Health 's inspection: In 2 days (Thurs, Fri, last week) 197 premises inspected. Defective ventilation 103 cases; 67 houses were damp, 39 dirty; 30 had no sanitary accommodation; in 45, sanitary accommodation was defective in construction and flushing; 116 - trap arrangements obsolete; 85 drains had no outlets to pipes; 124 - no flushing arrangements or inlets at all; 37 premises had no yards; 27 yards - very dirty; in 35 there were "signs of rats"
Inoculation of Rats
- 3 kinds of substances used for inoculations: 
1. Haffkine's - preventative - from India. (but if patient already infected Haffkine's could be fatal)
2. Yersin - remedial - from Pasteur Institute (administered to patients with plague.
3. one for killing rats; on order.


REFERENCES IN THE CHURCHES


THE PLAGUE AND ITS VICTIMS
- Rev. J Fordyce M.A. - spoke of "visitation" that had come to city and need for "calmness and sanity" and the duty of trusting God. Spoke to young men of sudden call to their comrade (parishioner who had died of plague) comparing it to death on battlefield. Urged young men to regard life as moral discipline to live it seriously and be prepared for death.
- Archbishop of Sydney issued instructions to clergy authorising them to use a Prayer for a time of common sickness - as well as making special efforts to stop spread by taking precautions and by attention to sanitary arrangements.


SMALLPOX AND PLAGUE IN MANILLA
How it is combated.
- Interview with Dr Ffoulkes (Govt H.O. in Manilla):
"Your people know the value of cleanliness, ours did not, and didn't want to. We issued orders requiring them to remove filth; they did not do it; we imposed fines and put them in prison, still they would not do it, and then we called in the soldiers and made them do it. Now we see that they keep the place clean. We have house-to-house visitations...Soldiers are taken with the inspectors and if they find a house that has not been disinfected they leave the soldiers there to make the people do it..."
"Of course your work in Sydney is easier than we have in Manilla; your people are more intelligent and your soil is not saturated with filth as ours is, therefore I think you will get rid of the plague pretty easily."

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR - SATURDAY MARCH 24TH, 1900

Sydney, 1900. On January 25th, the Sydney Morning Herald carries a report about a suspected case of Bubonic Plague, discovered in The Rocks, Sydney - not far from Circular Quay, where today large cruise ships disembark passengers. The family is quarantined, and as this is the first case, they are treated well, their house is cleansed and effectively renovated while they are at the Quarantine Station. Arthur Payne, the first case, recovers. The medical system is all ready, waiting for them, wanting to test out its preparedness, since it has been getting ready for this for several years.  A colonial health system is testing out its preparedness also for nation-state status, which will arrive the following year. But in 1900, the future of these colonies is uncertain and the outbreak serves as a kind of symbolic ‘war of independence’ in the absence of an actual struggle (though in 1900, Australian colonial troops are going to South Africa to fight in the Boer Wars, but that is far from the thoughts of Sydneysiders.) Subsequently 303 people contract the plague and 103 people die. I can tell you the names of everyone of them, it was such a small outbreak - unlike the pandemic of plague that raged through India and China in the 1890s in which millions of people died.

By coincidence, 120 years later,, January 25th 2020 is also the day that the first confirmed case of coronavirus is detected in Australia. So I thought, in self-isolation, I would start to look at other parallels with this earlier quarantine period and see what rhythms exist in periods of lockdown.

Will it turn out, as it did in 1900, that initial panic subsides and people become used to living in a state of siege? Will it be that by June, things calm down and by July, there is no more news to be made from the outbreak? In 1900 attention then turns to the passing of the Commonwealth Bill through the House of Commons, setting up the possibility of Federation and to the situation in China, where the Qing Dynasty is in the continuous crisis of its last years.

I’m using the notes I made between 1986 and 1991 from newspaper reports and from official documents - fragments, incomplete: my research notes from a PhD; I was just on the verge of throwing out this material..

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, Saturday March 24th, 1900 (4 columns)


Decisive Action by the Government


Special Meeting of the Executive Council


A large Area Isolated


Inner Area Quarantined


Disinfection on a Wholesale Scale


One thousand Men to be Employed


Fumigation of Coasting Vessels


Proclamation Issued
- people who live in quarantined area have option of going to North Head at Government cost or remaining confined in area.  Tradesmen can carry out their account books but no other property. (my note: account books are not infectious; trade must not be interrupted)
- "Infected Area" surrounds the quarantined area. Here "the people will be under surveillance, but generally speaking, not in such a manner as to cause them much inconvenience.." unless plague occurs, when the restrictions imposed may be found "irksome" - 500 men to be immediately employed and to stay in quarantined area. Prophylactic ordered from India and from Pasteur Institute in Paris; health authorities also intend to manufacture their own.
- people gathered in streets, waiting to be quarantined. When will it happen, they asked all evening. Then at 10.30, 40 police arrived.


Suggestion for Plague Eradication
Burning Barrels of Pitch and Tar
- from O'Sullivan, Minister for Works. Great Plague of London - 6000/week killed. Great Fire stopped it all; We can't afford to burn area but pitch and tar would destroy all germs. And it would only cost £300.
(My note - 2020: We’ve already had our Great Fire – it happened over summer 2019-2020!)

A Prejudice Against Oysters
- assurance that oysters on sale don't come from Sydney Harbour but from Port Macquarie and Wallis Lake.
- 

Letter from George R. Dibbs saying fill in Darling Harbour
- 

Letter From Henry Priestley, produce agent in Sussex St complaining of having been kept waiting two days for inoculation.

THE HOUSING QUESTION - ABM, Madrid, Oct 26th, 2019

Another special event, showing The Housing Question in Vallecas. ABM, a special artist-run space. Extra special for this installation we also showed documentaries about the Saharawi camps, featuring the singer, the late Mariem Hassan, whose music scores the Madrid section of The Housing Question. In the course of working on this project we discovered that it is the case of the Saharawi people in a 1975 International Court of Justice Advisory that precisely raised the question of terra nullius in Indigenous land rights cases. This is the concept that has been so influential in the land rights movement in Australia. So, the landscape of our continent has been transformed indirectly by the plight of the Saharawi people in a former Spanish colony in the Western Sahara - something we hadn’t known when we started our project. Music is a weapon. We met people at the screening who work with Saharawi refugees, fostering children from the camps over summer when the desert temperature is 50 degrees C.