Driven by Fear: Epidemics and Isolation in San Francisco's House of Pestilence

Abstract

Driven by Fear, by Guenter B. Risse, investigates the relationship between disease and emotions. It explores how fear and disgust shaped the history of the pesthouse, the popular term for a quarantine and isolation facility. Such emotions led to the denial of proper medical care and respect for basic human dignity. This study of the stigma attached to the pesthouse and the people within it makes a significant contribution to the history of medicine and public health, as well as the history of San Francisco. Driven by Fear is a prequel to Risse's earlier work on the history of the plague in San Francisco's Chinatown in the early twentieth century. In his latest study he addresses how the anti-Chinese movement in California influenced the creation of the pesthouse, or isolation hospital, as a response to the dangers of contagion. From the 1860s to the 1920s, San Francisco officials used the institution to contain four diseases: smallpox, syphilis, leprosy, and plague. Risse shows the efforts of the local medical society and of patients who advocated for better conditions and improved caregivers in the “house of pestilence.” They repeatedly pushed the San Francisco Board of Governors to provide appropriate funding to offer both public protection and a more humane environment for those who were banished. Such efforts, however, were often hindered by a tax-averse electorate.