The Plague Walk Dawes Point to Darling Harbour

The Plague Walk

                         Dawes Point to Darling Harbour

The Third Pandemic of Bubonic Plague began in the Yunan province in China in 1855 and ultimately
spread spread to all inhabited continents, and killed more than 12 million people in India and China
alone. According to the World Health Organization, the pandemic was considered active until 1959,
when worldwide casualties dropped to 200 per year. This Third pandemic was preceded by the Plague
of Justinian and the Black Death or Great Mortality in Europe in the Fourteenth century.

A Muslim rebellion in Yunan caused refugees to migrate to southern provinces in China . Major
outbreaks of Plague were recorded in Guangzhou and then downriver to Hong Kong by May 1894.
More than 100000 died in Hong Kong.       Singapore and particularly Bombay where 60,000 are said to
have died, experienced devastating outbreaks in 1896. By 1900 Asuncion, Buenos Aires, Rio de
Janiero, San Francisco, Oporto, Alexandria, Honolulu and Noumea had all recorded outbreaks.

This was the heroic age of microbiology when in a few decades the organisms responsible for many of
the major causes of human mortality – tuberculosis, plague, cholera, malaria and syphilis – were
identified In 1894, in Hong Kong, bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin isolated the responsible bacterium
(Yersinia pestis) and determined the common mode of transmission. A short time later, Japanese
physician and researcher Shibasaburo Kitasato independently identified the plague bacillus (after mis-
identifying the bacterium at an earlier point). . Paul-Louis Simond from the Institut Pasteur had
identified small lesions, phytenicules on the ankles of plague victims which he thought were flea bites.
He postulated a connection between human and rodent plague and identified the flea as a possible
vector.

From May 1894 until December 1899 health authorities in each of the colonies had instituted
internationally agreed quarantine procedures for incoming ships from plague infected ports. But with
the arrival of plague in Noumea, a mere three and a half days steam from Sydney more draconian
measures were introduced: all vessels arriving from infected ports had to lie in quarantine for 12 days
from sailing, and sulphur was burnt to kill any rats on board. In addition the French consul arranged for
the importation of a small stock of Haffkines prophylactic in 1899, which was subsequently
administered to over 10000 people thought to be at risk of contact with plague between March and June
1900.

The Outbreak Begins

On 19th January 1900, Arthur Paine a carman employed at Central Wharf was the first case of
confirmed plague. On January 19th he was driving his lorry through the city when he was seized with

giddiness and headache and stomach pains. He returned to work but four hours later he began to feel
pain in his left groin. The pain in his groin continued through the night and next day he was found
dozing and feverish. A small circular lesion was found behind his left achilles tendon. Mr Paine and his
family were removed to the Maritime Quarantine station. His fever subsided on the fourth day. Bacteria
were grown in culture from pus expressed from the groin swelling, and subsequently inoculated into
mice and guinea pigs. The appearances at post mortem of these animals, and the properties found on
culture caused Dr Frank Tidswell, the government microbiologist to conclude that the bacillus
answered positively to all the immediately applicable tests for Bacillus Pestis Bubonica. Mr Paine
survived the infection.

Central wharf was located at Miller Point. Arthur Paine carted exports from city warehouses to the
wharf. For the months prior he had been carting wool almost exclusively. He had had no business on
board ships, nor handled unloaded goods from any newly arrived ship. He had only visited on other
wharf, the AUSN wharf in the three months prior to infection. This wharf is close to the end of King
Street. He lived within 150 metres of Central wharf at No 10 Ferry Lane. The foundations of his house
have been preserved.

The second case, diagnosed on 24th February, was Thomas Dudley, a sailmaker who occupied a loft on
the harbour side of Sussex St, near Erskine Street. Cases 2-5 were linked to Huddart and Parkers wharf
which was where Margaret Street would extend to the western foreshore of the city. Over 60% of cases
had a deemed place of infection within 1 kilometre of this wharf.

Steamships and Plague
The steamship had in the preceding decades dramatically reduced travelling times for shipping to the
far reaches of the Pacific and Indian oceans and beyond. The ship which carried plague into Sydney
was never confidently identified. There had been no ships arriving in Australian ports since 1894 which
had a case of human plague on board. However, there were 13 vessels which arrived from infected
ports in the three months prior to the first case, including four - the Prometheus, the Ching Wo, the
Kaisow and the Kintuck which had docked at Central wharf. The Kintuck had docked between January
9th and January 20th , when Mr Paine contracted his disease. All of these ships carried Chinese crews.
Dr John Ashburton Thompson

                                     The infection of Sydney with Plague was officially announced. In
                                     command of operations was Dr John Ashburton Thompson, a
                                     remarkable public health physician who was the Head of the
                                     Public Health Department, Chief Medical Officer and President of
                                     the Board of Health. He had been the architect of the first Public
                                     Health Act in Sydney and had played a pivotal role in the
                                     investigations of some of the most significant public health issues
                                     of the day: smallpox, typhoid in the milk supply, lead poisoning in

Broken Hill and dengue in Mackay. He had been trained in public health in Cambridge and Brussels,
and had been a general practitioner and obstetrician in central London before emigrating.

He was the author of the Aetiology of Plague Deduced from its Epidemiology as Observed in Sydney.
This report describes the epidemiology and management of the seven outbreaks of plague in Sydney
which occurred between 1900 and 1907. It is a remarkable document in that it contributed significantly
to international understanding of the mode of transmission and therefore the management priorities in
outbreaks of bubonic plague. Ashburton Thompson lived in the heroic age of microbiology when the
microbes of the most important infectious diseases were described and cultured. It had only been after
the 1896 outbreak in Hong Kong that the bubonic plague organism, Yersnia pestis had been identified.
In fact Ashburton Thomspon had a significant battle with elected officials to allow the culture and
inoculation of this organism into test animals to confirm diagnosis. This was only won after the 250th
case had occurred.

Civic Hygiene in Sydney

The Port Area of Sydney in 1900, where wharf labourers and seaman lived with their families was
unsewered and crowded. Ashburton Thompson had this to say of the area:

         I say deliberately that I know of no place worse than this – no not even in the London slums
         of which I have had large experience. This collection of filthy brick huts, I cannot call them
         houses, and all other such places as are discovered, will be presented to the medical officer of
         health of the local authority as places unfit for human habitation. They are simply ghastly.
Concerns about public hygiene, particularly in the working class suburbs in the harbour foreshores had
been prominent through the 1880s and 1890s. Ashburton Thompson’s brother, Gerald was the arts
critic for the Sydney Morning Herald and he often ghosted for his brother in publicizing the appalling
state of hygiene in these suburbs.

Outbreak Investigation
In the first outbreak 303 cases occurred between January 19th and August 9th , and there were 103
deaths. A second large outbreak occurred between November 1901 and June 1902 in which 139
persons were infected and 39 people died. The investigations carried out by Ashburton Thompson
confirmed for the first time, at least in the context of an epidemic, the crucial role of the rat flea in the
transmission of plague. Ancient Chinese and Indian texts had warned that rat fall was a portent of
plague in urban populations. The careful synthesis by Ashburton Thompson of epidemiological
information about rat mortality and human cases, and the fact that they did not coincide in place
provided strong evidence that there was another agent involved in human transmission. The first
Sydney outbreak was essentially an occupational outbreak, with more than 60% of cases occurring
within 1 km of the Huddart and Parker wharf, near Erskine St. (See attached outbreak map from
Ashburton Thompsons report.)

The Managemennt principles which were invoked during the 1901 outbreak persisted throughout
subsequent epidemics, which lasted until 1920.

Managing the Epidemic

Forced Evacuations and Quarantine
It was these working class people who lived adjacent to or worked in the wharves who bore the brunt
of the plague outbreak. During the first epidemic more than 1750 people were forcibly evicted from
their homes to the quarantine station at North Head. There were numerous examples of defiance to
these public health measures. The King family from Redfern on learning that they would be removed to
North Head initially refused to leave, bet relented before the premier intervened. A number of people
escaped from the quarantine enclosures, one making his way to Goulburn before recapture. There was
open disagreement between the premier and the Board of Health. The Board wanted to be able to
exercise discretion in who was forcibly relocated to North Head and by mid-May this was granted.
Houses and outbuildings were disinfected and sometimes demolished. A cordon sanitaire was
established along the entire western side of the city, as seen below. Residents were confined to these
areas and had to endure intrusions from sanitary inspectors and cleansing teams. There were also rat
killing programs on a large scale.

Rat Extermination
                                                                         Environmental           Health
                                                                         Officers undertook a large
                                                                         scale    program     of    rat
                                                                         extermination in the area of
                                                                         the     cordon      samitaire.
                                                                         Bounties were also placed on
                                                                         rat carcasses. Over 100000
                                                                         rats were killed.
                                                                         House      Demolition     and
                                                                         Engineering

An integral part of the cleanup was the demolition of derelect housing within the plague affected area.
In the decades which followed the foetid wharves were demolished and a vast engineering project
undertaken to carve from the sandstone Hickson Road

Public Communication
The first epidemic abated by late September 1900 but it caused a degree of human tragedy and
suffering out of all proportion to the number of cases and deaths from illness. The deep seated fears of
plague were an important factor driving political and public responses. Most people acquired the
disease in the course of their employment, and so were family breadwinners. Management protocols
pioneered by Ashburton Thompson were used in subsequent epidemics in Sydney and in NSW coastal
towns such as Newcastle, Kempsey and Lismore, which also had smaller outbreaks of plague.
Some Further Reading

Kelly, John. "The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating
Plague of All Time". New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-06-000692-7.
Marriott The Plague Race A Tale of Fear, Science and Heorism Picador Books 2002 ISBN 0 330
48319 6
McNeill, William H. "Plagues and People". New York: Anchor Books, 1976. ISBN 0-385-12122-9.