Plague And Fire Summary

Overall the book Plague and Fire by James C. Mohr captured my attention in the saddest of ways. From the in depth documentation of the fire that ravaged Chinatown and the devastation it left in its wake, to the tragic plague that killed the diverse people of Honolulu, my attention was focused on the amount of dead that was a result of this awful plague. Mohr outlined heavily the reactions of the people and how that negatively or even positively helped the fight against the silent killer. This book details the struggle that the doctors went through and how they originally failed to contain the plague in the city and the effect that all of the social and economic factors held in the outbreak of the plague. From the advancement of wooden to iron ships, the socioeconomic growth, and the racial tensions that were held, it was all interconnected in a tangled and …show more content…
It is not as simple as prescribing the patient a drug, and this book was about a time where physicians did not have a type of drug that could fight the plague. All these doctors had were half baked theories on the way it was transmitted and how to avoid it. Even then, when Doctor Hoffman found positive tests for the plague in patients, other doctors met that with skepticism because using a microscope was still a relatively new way of diagnosing diseases and often many older doctors did not believe in it. There was more parts to the book not outlined in this review, but for me the most important part was the way Mohr wrote about the socioeconomic classes and how everything stockpiled against the doctors and their fight against the plague. We see too often the science behind it, and how doctors advanced their technology, but the thing that is surprisingly lacking is the effect that people had in the hindrance and the advancement of the medical