“Why There is No Reason for General Alarm and Wild Rumors But Why Strict Precautions Are Necessary”: The Pneumonic Plague Epidemic in Los Angeles, November 1924, Part One

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

The eight photos from the Homestead’s collection featured in this post are said to be from the period in fall 1924 when Los Angeles experienced a pneumonic plague outbreak, this being a half-dozen or so years after the horrific global flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of persons, though the typed descriptions on the reverse do not make reference to the epidemic, which largely affected poor Latinos living near today’s Union Station as well as at Belvedere Gardens (East Los Angeles) and a few other areas.

The images are of a Chinese laundry, “Negro shacks,” and and “old store building” in an area near Central Avenue and 6th Street, with six of them showing the laundry site and, even if we don’t have a direct correlation to the plague, it was clear from the taking and labeling of these views that there was a marked concern over the poor condition of the structures and lots and one wonders if these were taken by city officials because of the rushed effort to deal with properties where the plague could elsewhere be found.

While the first illness tied to the epidemic seems to have started in late September, with a doctor called to examine a very ill man and his daughter, reporting in the press was basically absent until the first of November, when the Hollywood Citizen quoted from the United Press that

Twelve Mexicans have fallen victim to the pneumonic plague during the past 10 days, while at least five others are expected to die.

Diagnosis of the swift striking disease which developed among 17 mourners who attended the funeral on October 19 of Mrs. Luciana Samarano was revealed today by Dr. Elmer R. Pascoe, acting city health officer.

Pascoe was quoted as telling the media, “we have definitely established that the ailment is the pneumonic plague,” of which it was concluded that “death follows swiftly, generally within four days after the disease first appears.” Obviously, it can be asked why it took so long for press accounts to be published, more than a month after the plague first struck, with a supposition being that authorities reacted slowly, perhaps because of the ethnicity and poverty of the victims as well as the desire to avoid a larger panic while hoping to stamp out the outbreak.

It was perhaps telling that the Los Angeles Express of the same day referred to “a mysterious malady which has caused the death of nine of the 17 persons who attended the funeral” of Samarano and that her “illness was similar to pneumonia.” After naming several members of that family and others, the paper concluded its brief note by observing, “the eight others are in the hospital and some are expected to die.”

The paper, a few days later, published a quote from Eugene Hervey, an Ohio doctor and former health officer, who opined that rats “are less numerous here than in any other large city” and that this was great news because the rodents “rate A-1 as the quickest disease carriers in the world” as “almost all varieties of plagues are diseases are transmitted by rats and may be quickly carried over an entire city in that manner.

The physician told the Express that, during his week’s stay in the Angel City, he specifically investigated potential rat-infested locales and saw only a few and added, echoing comments made nearly four decades before when a veterans’ home was being sought for the region as mentioned in yesterday’s post:

This is because a large portion of Los Angeles is of recent construction and there are few dirty, tumbledown structures, such as rats inhabit. From my survey, I would say that Los Angeles was less liable to be troubled with any plague or sickness of a general nature than is any other city in the country.

On 6 November, the Citizen published a short feature that cited city health officials as stating that “spread of the pneumonic epidemic which broke out in the Mexican section of Los Angeles has been definitely halted,” but this positive announcement was then followed by the sobering report that “the death toll now stands at 27 . . . while there are eight cases in the isolation ward at the general hospital.”

The paper continued that doctors “today admitted the local malady originated from a bubonic plague victim,” observing that, when it came to treatment with a serum, there was fundamentally no difference between a bubonic case, affecting the glands, and pneumonic, involving the lungs. The first victim, Jesús Lujón (spelled “Loujon” in media accounts), attended the Sambrano funeral before showing symptoms, but it was not known how he contracted the disease. He, however, survived, while the 17 persons who came into contact with him had all since died.

In a longer piece with the same basic tenor, the Los Angeles Times of the same day reported that, with one death in the prior two days and no new cases in the previous twenty-four hours, “the present outbreak of pneumonic plague . . . appearing in a small area of the Mexican quarter, seemed to be well under control last night.” Officially, the total case count was 33 and it counted 26 deaths, while the paper added that the quarantined area was between Alameda Street on the west and the Los Angeles River on the east and from Macy Street [César E. Chávez Avenue] and Alhambra Avenue, formerly to the north before the development of Union Station.

It was further stated that, as a precaution because the last known case of plague was with someone who was erroneously said to be from Belvedere Gardens, “a corps of nurses and field agents yesterday made a thorough survey . . . surrounding the homes of two victims who died of the disease several days ago, examined scores of families and set aside about six square blocks, as a quarantined area.”

As for Lujón, the Times reported that state and federal health officers determined that he did not, as was previously supposed, contract the plague from a ground squirrel around the first of October as above noted, and it was also remarked that his daughter Francisca was originally believed to have had double pneumonia. The fact that she died of pneumonic, while Jesús had the less fatal glandular, or bubonic, version was also highlighted. The best guess was that he either came into contact with a diseased rat or an unidentified person with the infection. Lastly, it was stated that all 33 known cases were from those associated with the Sambrano funeral.

The paper reported that, with the understanding that the epidemic was “apparently stamped out,” city officials were moving to “a thorough survey of the city’s rat population” and that the City Council, which included Boyle Workman as one of its members, appropriated $25,000 for this purpose, while the same amount was set aside by the county Board of Supervisors for work in its areas of jurisdiction. Notably, the first examinations were at the Port of Los Angeles, because of the prevalence of rats on arriving vessels. Otherwise, 25 inspectors, four forepersons and, if needed, doctors, quarantine officials and “rat elimination experts” were to be hired and $1,00 was to be expended for rat traps.

A committee of doctors issued a statement, under the signature of Walter M. Dickie, secretary of the State Board of Health and a director of the committee, in which it was declared,

While an outbreak of plague is always a potential menace, still, when it is recognized early and prompt and efficient measures against it are taken, the danger of a widespread dissemination is minimal . . .

There has been only one new case in three days and it is hoped that this may be the last. However, other cases must be expected and in search of them a house-to-house inspection twice daily is being made in the inspection zone, and all sick persons examined. A campaign of rat extermination is already begun and will be pushed intensely . . .

There is no reason for public alarm . . .

The Los Angeles Record, also from the 6th, ran a lengthy feature under the heading of “The Truth About Pneumonia Epidemic” with its subheading including the statement “why there is no reason for general alarm and wild rumors but why strict precautions are necessary.” It also quoted Dickie as remarking, “newspapers should give the public complete information about the present epidemic and the ways of stamping it out” while he then asserted “I cannot sit here in this office, in the midst of an uninformed populace, and eradicate this disease.”

Whether this was a criticism of the lack of information provided to the public by officials and the media to date or not, Dickie continued that “health authorities cannot win the fight single-handed” as “the people must have an intelligent knowledge of the situation, so they can give us intelligent co-operation.” These sentiments would, of course, have applied to the flu pandemic of 1918-1919 much less to our own recent COVID-19 pandemic, but there was more to the matter than this.

For this next part of the story, the Record embraced this opportunity to share “complete information” and listed three main points for what it called “an absolutely essential public service”:

First—To put a stop once and for all to the outrageous and damaging rumors which, in the absence of complete public information, are distorting the truth, arousing unfounded fears in the minds of the residents, threatening the healthy activities of the city and laying the foundation for unnecessary excitement.

Second—To equip the citizens of Los Angeles to refute the misrepresentations of the facts which unscrupulous newspapers in other cities are broadcasting to their readers in an attempt to injure Los Angeles.

Third—To prepare the residents of this city to give the fullest and most efficient co-operation to the quarantine regulations which, if properly carried out, may confidently be relied upon quickly to stamp out the disease.

In its recitation of the facts, the Record discussed the types of plague involved, citing Lujon as the first victim as well as members of his family and then stated that there was not another case for about two weeks when Sambrano contracted the disease and died after four days. There were 18 persons, including a Catholic priest, who attended her funeral, with all of them dead or dying and the duration of the illness averaging four days, though the longest was double that, while the priest died after just a day.

The paper counted three dozen cases with “all directly traceable back to the original root case” and it was this circumstance that led officials to insist that “there is no ground for hysteria or alarm,” but that, if the rigid quarantine was observed, there would be “an early extermination of the disease.” For the main quarantine area, outlined above, which, however, was reduced by about half, “the streets of this section were maaked [sic] off by ropes, and 40 policemen were placed on guard.” A house on Hill Street south of 12th Street where two persons attending the Sambrano funeral died, was also quarantined, as was a portion of Belvedere Gardens, including a house where a mother and two of her children died.

Dr. Pascoe then called in Dr. Dickie, who was accounted “one of the country’s greatest experts on this form of disease” and who was known for quick, determined action to stamp out epidemics. Pascoe was also credited for importing antitoxins for doctors, nurses and health officials who came into contact with those suffering from the plague. The paper also observed that it was assumed that it was brought by rats onboard ships from Asia and that ground squirrels in the San Francisco Bay region were infected, though it was not thought the local squirrels were exposed.

Dickie was quoted as observing that the plague “is one of the most deadly diseases known to medical science,” fighting the epidemic was not difficult as the germs die quickly outside the body and when exposed to dry conditions, which is why the pneumonic version was far less likely to wreak havoc in Los Angeles than in wetter climates. He went on to note that “sunlight, heat and the usual germicides quickly kill the bacilli,” while “the organism does not live long on the floors or walls of houses, as was formerly supposed.”

It was the pneumonic form that was greatly feared as easily transmissible and deadly, while Dickie assured readers that “the health authorities of Los Angeles at present are doing everything that can be done to combat the present epidemic,” though the concern, now that the disease was considered under control, was to address the cause:

Los Angeles must get rid of rats. Rats in this city are only a serious menace in the industrial and wholesale districts . . . there is not much rat infestation in the residence districts.

But in those parts of the city where poorer people live, rats are numerous, and apparently full of fleas . . .

And in connection with a rat extermination campaign, there must be a campaign against ground squirrels. They cannot be killed, but they can be kept five miles away from the cities, so there will be less danger of infecting the town rats and propagating infection . . .

Fighting this disease doesn’t simply mean staying away from infected areas . . .

Tenement conditions like those existing in the Mexican quarter here should be at once ameliorated. A community can be no more healthful than its slums, and if there are in the heart of the industrial section of the city houses where the most terrible pestilences of the orient are allowed to develop, the city should not let another day pass without pulling down unsanitary shacks, and sending those who live there into the suburbs where they can get plenty of light, fresh air and proper sanitary surroundings.

The featured photos certainly reflect the conditions noted by Dickie, whether or not directly tied to the plague that struck Los Angeles a century ago.

We will return tomorrow with part two of this post, so be sure to join us then.