“Lepers for Show:” The Performance of Medical Authority and the Illusion of the Chinese Medical Threat in Nineteenth-Century America

Wyszynski, Claire

Publication

“Lepers for Show:” The Performance of Medical Authority and the Illusion of the Chinese Medical Threat in Nineteenth-Century America

Wyszynski, Claire

Abstract

Excerpt from the paper: "The energy of the crowd was infectious. On a fateful day in August 1884, over 200 men flocked to the City Hall of Washington, DC. They gathered to hear the remarks of Dr. Charles C. O’Donnell, the candidate for coroner of San Francisco, who had traveled across the country from California to deliver a speech to their city. It was unusual for a local politician of the West to journey so far for a speaking engagement, but this peculiarity only seemed to warm the crowd to him more. Under the shadow of the Capitol, the anticipation of the spectators was palpable in the air. Dr. O’Donnell had promised the buzzing crowd something that they had never seen before: an exhibit of diseased Chinese immigrants..."