In the autumn of 1910, the press in China began to report that a rare and deadly pneumonic plague had reached Harbin in the extreme Northeast of China, then known as Manchuria.[1] Though confined largely to China’s Northeastern provinces, cases were reported sporadically throughout the empire, in Tianjin, Beijing and along the Beijing-Hankou railway line stretching down into central China, reflecting the scale of the epidemic.[2] Continue reading →