By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A St. Joseph man has written a book about his great grandfather who just so happens to be the father of the National Institutes of Health.
Oh, and he also discovered the Bubonic Plague in America.
Joseph Houts, Jr. says he first thought about writing the story of Joseph James Kinyoun, his great grandfather, while wrapping up his history degree in college. It took decades before he would.
Houts says Kinyoun learned a lot from studying the origins of disease during two 19th Century Wars: the Crimean War and the Civil War.
“Even in the Civil War, there’s a lot of conflicting (accounts), I’m pretty solid that 875,000 American lives died during that conflict and, of that, probably 625,000 were from disease,” Houts tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline.
Houts has written a book entitled Joseph James Kinyoun. A PBS documentary, “Plague at the Golden Gate,” comes out next month.
Houts says Kinyoun made the connection between cleanliness and disease, especially after studying under European bacteriologists.
“Sanitation was the key to modern health more than anything, too,” Houts says. “That if you had clean water and clean living quarters, you got rid of your trash, your sewage and things like that, you had a great chance of eradicating a lot of these diseases.”
Houts says Kinyoun also discovered Bubonic Plague had reached America when it took the lives of several San Francisco residents in China Town.
“He was the one that knew the rat-flea connection, that it was a black rat with the flea, then the flea carried the plague,” according to Kinyoun. “And then if you lived in unsanitary conditions, where the rats were eating the rubbish out in your street and they’ve got the plague, look out.”
Houts says his great grandfather paid a huge price for discovering that the Bubonic Plague had come ashore in San Francisco’s China Town with political and business interests threatening his life if he publicized his findings. Leaders in San Francisco feared publicity about the plague would ruin the city.
Kinyoun also butted heads with his superiors, leaving his reputation in tatters.
Lost in the controversy was Kinyoun’s contribution to the United States’ health system. Kinyoun founded the Hygienic Laboratory which became the NIH.