The Guangdong plague of 1894 was a major outbreak of bubonic plague in south China toward the end of the Qing dynasty. The pestilence reportedly emerged in Guangdong Province (Canton) in February of 1894, but was not reported by members of the foreign community until it reached the nearby British colony of Hong Kong in May.[1]As Hong Kong was a major international port, by the turn of the century the plague became a pandemic, spreading as far as Japan, Bombay and Hawaii.[2]Contraction of the disease was especially deadly in the pre-antibiotic era: Continue reading