Joseph James Kinyoun

In March 1900, Dr. Joseph James Kinyoun, a Surgeon with the Marine Hospital Service and student of Louis Pasteur and Dr. Robert Koch, detected bubonic plague in San Francisco, while stationed on Angel Island as a federal quarantine officer. His discovery of the plague led to an immediate outcry from California's governor, local and state politicians, and the city's commercial interests. The hyper-sensationalized journalism of San Francisco's newspapers leapt at the opportunity. Kinyoun would be ridiculed in the press for over a year, leading to death threats and a $50,000 bounty on his head. Eventually, California's quarantine caused an enormous uproar. In time, a special plague commission was installed by the U. S. Treasury Department. After the commissioners completed their report, Supervisory Surgeon-General Walter Wyman withheld it from the public leading to charges of a coverup. In the end, Wyman released the report, which totally vindicated Kinyoun, but a deal had been brokered behind the scenes wherein Kinyoun was removed from his post. This book tells a timely story about yellow journalism, coverup, corruption, the struggle between science and politics, and the consequences of blind denial of the truth--