by Paul R. Spitzzeri
In its 7 November 1924 edition, the Los Angeles Times, under the heading of “No Spread of Disease,” the paper reported that an update on the pneumatic plague epidemic that looks to have started weeks before, but did not get significant media coverage until about a week earlier, was provided the previous evening by Dr. Walter M. Dickie, secretary of the State Board of Health. While there’d only recently been claims that the disease was halted in its tracks, Dickie informed the public that,
There were two new cases of pneumonic plague discovered last night—one from infected Mexican area of Los Angeles [this near today’s Union Station] and one from the Belvedere district [East Los Angeles], and two new cases were discovered today in the Belvedere district. All these cases developed in houses where previous cases had occurred and which were under quarantine and were being closely watched. There have not been, therefore, any new foci. There was one death last night and one more today.
It was added that, after the statement was issued, another death was recorded at the General Hospital, bringing the toll to 28. Meanwhile, it was announced that “rat surveys were well underway yesterday in the two quarantined areas” and “the most concerted survey was begun at Los Angeles Harbor by twenty-five expert rat catchers,” while “a bacteriological laboratory has been established” with every rodent caught carefully examined. This was “to be followed by extensive extermination campaigns.”
With Belvedere Gardens in county territory, a chief quarantine officer from the health department “a clean-up campaign was conducted . . . [and] consisted of a thorough survey of all suspected houses within the quarantined area.” It was expected that “the county drive on rats will be started” the day of the article’s publication and the county official told the Times, “there have been no developments that indicate any further extension of the quarantined area . . . [and] there is no reason why the residents of the eastern districts should anticipate it.”
The Los Angeles Express, also of the 7th, echoed much of the sentiment of its competitor with respect to the claim that “spread of pneumonia seems checked,” and it is notable that the paper avoided using the word “plague.” It began its brief coverage by remarking,
Like the Pied Piper who drove all the rats from Hamlin town, so are the health authorities waging a battle today to exterminate the rodents in this district as a method of fighting the probable source of infection of a virulent form of pneumonia which struck a small section of the city’s Mexican quarters.
Dickie’s report was cited as affirming that “as far as the city itself is concerned there is little or no danger” because the plague had not spread from the quarantined sections. Meanwhile, an autopsy performed on the body of a man who’d died, it was suspected from the disease, confirmed that the cause was some other condition.
The 8 November edition of the Hollywood Citizen commented that “with success apparently crowning the efforts of health officials battling the Pneumonia plague in the Mexican section of Los Angeles,” the death toll was then 30, with a half-dozen sufferers in isolation at the hospital. The account ended with the notes that “house to house inspections are being made each day to discover possible new cases of the disease while a drive on rats . . . is reaping results” and that “it has been estimated that the rat population of the city equals the human population—this would have been approaching about 1 million, if correct.
In its edition that day, the Times focused on the report that there were no new cases in two days, though there were two additional deaths of those hospitalized and who were in the downtown area and Dickie informed the paper that there was a case “under observation,” but no diagnosis was yet made. With no new areas or cases in the last day or so, the official remarked,
The intensive antiplague measures now established in this campaign have been done probably more quickly than has ever been accomplished in any previous fight against a plague epidemic. More men experienced in fighting plague have been placed in the local field than were ever before gathered together in any previous epidemic.
A state inspector, Edward T. Ross, was reported to have been involved in curbing epidemics at San Francisco and New Orleans. Another tidbit was that the rat population in Los Angeles County was pegged at some $2 million and “each rat costs the community approximately $6 a year to support.
It was also mentioned that county health officials with expertise in ground squirrels, the subject of a similar campaign of survey. Statewide, it was observed, there were probably 100 million ground squirrels and, at thirty cents each, the total cost to the state was $30 million, so it was averred that “an enormous economic loss is caused annually in California,” and this was “greater than the cost of extermination would be.”
Dickie warned that “as long as this rodent population remains in California we are in danger of outbreaks of plague” and which would involve an expense to the Angel City far above what would be entailed in “adequate preventive measures.” Moreover, the officer opined that “this plague is not unexpected, Los Angeles is exposed to three lines of attack,” these being squirrels from the north and rats imported by ship from Asia and by train from México. He added, “this epidemic is the first gun fired by the enemy” and “spiking” the weapons “is also good economics.”
In addition to $50,000 already appropriated towards mitigation measures, it was expected that the City Council, one member of which was Boyle Workman, was to advance another $25,000 in its next meeting in a couple of days. Moreover, the body was anticipated to pass an emergency ordinance “requiring coastwise vessels arriving at the harbor to be provided with large, metal rat guards on all mooring lines.”
Another notable component to the plague response was at Macy Street School with its principal Nora Sterry (1879-1942) commended by Superintendent Susan M. Dorsey for staying at her post, which was within the quarantine zone, and “where she has organized the relief work” and “for the past week has been feeding those in the district [which had an estimated 1,500 Latino residents] at the school cookery and with the help of others has been distributing food to the needy homes.”
Superintendent Dorsey remarked in the bulletin that “the Macy community will long remember Miss Sterry and her self-forgetful efforts in their behalf” and, in its issue of the 14th, the Times reported that the principal appealed to city health officials and Mayor George E. Cryer to allow her to enter the quarantine area and commented to reporters, “they can’t keep me out, all my children are in there.” Five days later, the paper editorialized the principal by observing,
She knew and loved the children of her district, thought of the trying time in store for them with death stalking abroad, believed that they needed her aid and comfort . . . [despite warnings from quarantine guards] Miss Sterry spent nearly two weeks spreading cheer in a place that had all too little to be cheerful about. She fed and clothed and encouraged and advised and kept up the morale of her neighborhood . . .
When the quarantine was over, the danger pronounced over, the grateful residents of Little Mexico testified their appreciation with a gold medal, a decoration which Miss Sterry may wear as proudly as heroes of battle wear the Congressional Medal of Honor. It was won as their medals were won—by extraordinary heroism above and beyond duty.
If true education is a leading to higher and better things Miss Sterry has given the children of the Macy-street school district such a lesson as is never obtained from books, an example that will inspire and vivify their whole lives.
On 22 November, a letter to the Times from M.C. Frederick stated that Sterry’s selflessness “was only a natural sequence” because almost fifty years before Frederick’s teacher in Newton, Kansas was Sterry’s mother, Augusta Slocum, and within a diphtheria epidemic went through town, Slocum ministered to homes and caught the disease. With this pedigree, Frederick concluded, “Nora Sterry was true to type in her services to the Mexicans” and was “a worthy daughter of exceptional forebears” as part of “three successive generations of heroic womanhood,” including her grandmother. After Sterry’s death, a school in the Sawtelle area was renamed in her honor.
Dickie’s next report, featured in the Times of the 9th included an update on the total number of cases (36), deaths (30) and the fact that no new cases or deaths had occurred in two days. He also took the opportunity to address misinformation as to the causes of the outbreak and told the paper,
There has been considerable misunderstanding among the public as to the source of danger in this epidemic. Many people believe that all kinds of fleas may convey infection, and that all rats are infected. This is not true. The infection is not conveyed by dog fleas . . . It is only conveyed by rat fleas, but rat fleas do not attack by preference, human beings [seeking other rats instead] . . .
Under the conditions present in Los Angeles, it is obvious that thousands of rats will have been examined, but as long as the proportion of rats infected is small, and there are numerous other rats for the fleas to migrate to after the death of the plague rat, there is very little danger of the fleas attacking the human beings.
The next day’s Citizen reported that “belief that the pneumonic plague epidemic among Los Angeles Mexicans has been halted” was the verdict of officials because of no new cases recorded for four days, while the number of hospitalized victims remained at a half-dozen. It was noted, though, that “a rigid quarantine is still maintained around the few blocks in Sonora town,” the location was actually adjacent to Chinatown to the east, though this latter was moved to a majority of Sonoratown in the Thirties when Union Station was built, “where the epidemic originated, with armed policemen on guard night and day around the area” with these “stationed at 25 foot intervals and all residents of the district are closely confined.”
The Times, of the 11th, however, in summarizing Dickie’s latest report observed that “two new cases in the past twenty-four hours, believed to be bubonic plague, [are] awaiting confirmation” and these involved a 9-year old boy and a 14-month old girl residing in “The Flats” of Boyle Heights, across the Los Angeles River and south of the quarantined section, though the paper stated that they were in such a locale.
As for the $25,000 original appropriation from the Council, less than half was spent to date and, while another $25,000 was to be requested, the effort to combat the disease was considered so successful that this was being held back as the remainder of the first allocation was thought to be enough to finish what needed to be done. Of forty-five armed guards in quarantine locales, a dozen were to be let go in the next day and, while most of the money was for inspections, payment to officials and equipment, $2,000 was directed towards buying food for families unable to leave their houses during quarantine. Lastly, the expected ordinance for rat guards on ships at the harbor was adopted.
There was one more death that was reported and this came in a brief note in the Times on the 13th, which did not name which of the half-dozen hospitalized victims succumbed to the plague two days prior. At last, as noted by the Citizen of the following day,
Fifteen hundred Mexicans, confined to their homes for two weeks, today walked the streets of Los Angeles Sonora-town with their fellow countrymen, following lifting of the pneumonic plague quarantine by state and city health officials.
With a week gone by without the report of any new cases, the armed guards cordoning off, at 20-foot intervals, an eight-block area, were sent home and, with the death toll stated to be 33 persons, the epidemic was considered to have been “definitely stamped out.” The Times of the 15th cited Dickie as stating that “the situation is well in hand and that the epidemic has been virtually wiped out,” though it was added that, without new cases or deaths in the previous two days, the official “declared the fight against the epidemic has been won.”
There was more to the story through the end of November, however, so we will return tomorrow with a concluding part three to wrap this post up. Be sure to join us then!
This post reminded me of the SARS outbreak 22 years ago. During the two-year epidemic, quarantines were imposed in parts of Asia on schools, homes, hospitals, and other locations. Like the brave and caring Nora Sterry mentioned here, heroic doctors and nurses risked their lives to save others.