Plague epidemic in Manchuria 1910–1911

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Victim of the plague epidemic in Manchuria 1910–1911

The plague epidemic in Manchuria claimed around 45,000 to 60,000 lives in Manchuria from October 1910 to February 1911. It was the first plague epidemic with a predominance of pulmonary plague since the Middle Ages . It led to modernizations in the Chinese healthcare system and the promotion of international collaboration among scientists. The epidemic, which is attributed to transmission by hunted rodents, has been contained through quarantine measures.

prehistory

Third plague pandemic

Localized bubonic plague outbreaks had been known for centuries in Manchuria, China and Transbaikalia . In the southern Chinese province of Guangdong , the third plague pandemic began with the spread of the pathogen to the British colony of Hong Kong . The epidemic there led to a worldwide spread of the plague from 1894/95. Alexandre Yersin succeeded in detecting the pathogen during the epidemic in Hong Kong . In 1899, the Chinese authorities hired a Japanese medical team, which successfully contained an outbreak of the disease near Hong Kong.

Endemic area of ​​Manchuria

The population of Manchuria was around 12.5 million people, the majority of whom lived in the countryside. The largest city was Mukden with around 180,000 inhabitants in 1906.

A traditional export good for the region was fur. These were obtained by raising fur from dogs, among others, or by hunting rodents such as the Siberian marmot . In addition to the fur of the animals, the meat was also used as food. The Manchu followed a traditional hunting ritual, which included the animal responding to a call from the prey. The role of animals as carriers of infectious diseases was known among the population and attempts were made to remove sick prey specimens by observing the blood clotting of dead animals by the hunter.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the chemical industry in Europe developed methods that made it possible to easily dye fur. As a result, there was significantly more international demand for small animal pelts, as a piece of clothing with a uniform color could now be made from different small furs. This led to a boom in fur hunting in Manchuria. This was organized by fur traders who recruited either Russian citizens or Chinese from Shantung Province during the hunting season.

From September 1910, rumors circulated among the locals in northern Manchuria that reported a disease associated with lung haemorrhage among fur hunters.

Political conditions

Manchuria was under the rule of the Chinese Empire. For the ruling Qing dynasty from the Manchu ethnic group, this region was of central importance as the home of the ruling house and an area rich in natural resources. However, the three provinces of Manchuria have been the object of foreign colonization efforts since the Unequal Treaties . After the Russo-Japanese War , both Japan and Russia had a sphere of influence in Manchuria.

Railway construction was a means of developing the country. The Russian side controlled the East China Railroad . This represented an extension of the Trans-Siberian . The line began in Mandouli on the border between Manchuria and Russia and led via Qiqihar to Harbin . There the line branched out and connected Harbin, which has around 40,000 inhabitants, with Vladivostok in the Russian Far East and with Changchun . The foreign citizens enjoyed extraterriotiral status and Japan and Russia were allowed to manage their own settlements as well as station troops along the railroad to secure them. They established modern medical facilities for their citizens and local workers along the railway lines. The city of Harbin was the center of the Russian presence in Manchuria and was an attempt to build a Russian city in Manchuria. Japan controlled the South Manchurian Railway . This led from Changchun via the old Manchu capital of Mukden to the seaport of Dalian with 40,000 inhabitants and to Antung on the border with the Japanese-controlled Korea. Japan developed Dalian as a rival urban center to Russian development in Harbin. In addition to the foreign companies, the Chinese state operated its own railway line which led from Mukden to the capital Beijing .

Course of the epidemic

At the northernmost railway junction of the Russian railroad, Mandouli was a settlement with around 5,000 Russian and 2,000 Chinese inhabitants. During the fur-hunting season, the Chinese population rose to around 10,000 due to the influx of fur hunters. On October 28, 1910, Russian doctors in Mandouli diagnosed a local man for the first time by autopsy in Manchuria. Despite immediate quarantine measures and the cessation of rail traffic, 582 people died of the disease in Mandouli. On November 8, 1910, the first cases were discovered in Harbin. There 5,272 people fell victim to the disease. On January 2, 1911, the lung plague reached Mukden where a total of 2,571 deaths were counted. One day later, the first cases occurred in Changchun, where 3,104 deaths were counted in the course of time. Most of the deaths occurred in poorer areas of the Chinese population.

Both Russian, Chinese and Japanese authorities responded to the outbreak with quarantine measures. Sick and suspected cases were isolated and affected accommodations and facilities were closed. In Mukden, the local doctor Wang Yu Shih had to assert himself against the city's traders in order to have the emergency hospital, which they operated using traditional medicine , closed. By the time the facility closed, four traditional naturopaths and the majority of the city's plague patients died there. The Imperial Court of Foreign Affairs sent the first Chinese medicine graduate from Cambridge University, Wu Lien-teh, to coordinate the response to the outbreak by the Chinese authorities. Wu implemented hygienic measures across the board according to Western standards at the time, including the cremation of corpses in mass graves. The medical staff had to contend with numerous rumors and conspiracy theories about the cause of the pneumonic plague. Among other things, their spread via foreign coins and banknotes was assumed or the disease was attributed to the consumption of poor quality opium. From February 1911, the number of cases fell and the epidemic disappeared. Wu attributed this to the quarantine measures and the body burns.

The Japanese authorities began to control all people entering their area of ​​influence on November 25, 1910. In the process, they enforced rigid quarantine measures and restrictions on the free movement of the Chinese population. This enabled them to prevent the spread of the plague along their railway line through rigid quarantine measures. The military set up quarantine camps in which all Chinese rail travelers were admitted. After the railway traffic stopped, the police and the military effectively prevented the onward journey on foot along the railway line. According to a report by the captain of the SMS Iltis von Kayser, the entire Chinese population of Dalian has been quarantined.

consequences

Deaths

The disease control authorities of the parties involved counted a total of 43,972 deaths. One survivor was documented. This corresponds to around 2.25% of the total population at that time. The deaths spread along the corridor of the railway lines. Assuming a large number of undocumented cases, estimates of the death toll go up to 60,000.

Importance for the Chinese healthcare system

Wu Lien-teh achieved national fame as a result of the outbreak and was able to enforce the first state-run public health organization in China with the plague prevention service in northern Manchuria . This eventually went into the National Quarantine Service of the Republic of China, which was created on the model of the organization in Manchuria.

History of research and science

Wu Lien-Teh's publications and clinical descriptions of pneumonic plague remained the standard in the English-language medical literature for several decades. In the twentieth century, studies of the serovars of the plague bacteria from marmots in the region showed that these can be traced back to the Central Asian origin of the plague bacteria and were not caused by the Hong Kong strain that caused the third plague pandemic. DNA samples of the pathogen, which was spread in Manchuria in 1910/11, are not available.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Summers, 2012, p. 9, p. 51
  2. ↑ Summers, 2012, p. 112F
  3. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 109f
  4. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 116-124
  5. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 116-124
  6. ↑ Summers, 2012, p. 51
  7. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 15-18, p. 112
  8. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 15-18, pp. 109-116
  9. ↑ Summers, 2012, p. 19
  10. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 63-70
  11. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 19-21, pp. 63-66
  12. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 71-75
  13. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 1–5, p. 19
  14. ↑ Summers, 2012, p. 105
  15. ↑ Summers, 2012, pp. 127–129