TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 77
expressive, or in the closing words of Poe's story: "es lässt sich nicht
lesen" (109; italics and German language original). Her presence
registeredonlyinitseffects,inthepeoplewhocontractedtyphoid.
Looking back at the Mallon case, it becomes apparent that the
encounters generated by her personal mobility—which was also a
biological mobility—precipitated reactions in which not only the line
between the public and the private became progressively blurred but
also the most intimate aspects of a person's body became public matter.
Seeninalargerframework,onemightidentifyhereanearlyexampleof
aprocessthatinthecourseofthe20thcenturywouldprogressivelyshift
theterrainonwhichillnessmatteredfromtheindividualtothemultitude
andtogovernmentalityatlarge.^29 Inthisframework,thelifehistory,the
life style, or simply modes of individual living can amount to having a
culpablebiography.
The "Yellow Peril" Medicalized: Chinese Immigrants and the Bubonic
Plagueof1899/1900
On March 6, 1900, a worker was found dead in a hotel basement in
downtown San Francisco. He was 43 years old and of Chinese origin.
Verysoon,itbecameclearthathehaddiedfromthebubonicplague.As
thenewsspreadupthemedicalchainofcommand,doctorsrespondedto
the unfolding public health crisis to the bestof their medical expertise^30
andalso,sadlyso,tothebestoftheircultural"expertise":forsometime
preceding the events of 1900, the small but highly visible Chinese
community in the U.S., that "infamous race," had been accused of a
"willful and diabolic disregard of our sanitary laws" (John Meares,
M.D.,qtd.Shah1;morematerialinKalisch135;Markel,Germs49-57).
EspeciallythelivingquartersandlivinghabitsoftheChinesepopulation
were by popular as well as by medical consent regarded as "plague
spots,"as"cesspools,"andtheoutbreakofferedrobustevidenceforsuch
assumptions. It was no accident therefore that in "tracking the bubonic
plague and developing strategies to prevent its entry into the United
(^29) ArelatedargumentcanbefoundinHardtandNegri,Empirexiv.
(^30) As Shah notes, "health care authorities promoted bacteriological discoveries
andpublichealththerapieswithunflappableconfidence..."(125).