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Dr. Jonathan Letterman
Coroner, City and County of San Francisco.
Report 1868-1869
Chinatown
My report shows a large number of cases of
"marasmus" and "consumption." The great majority of persons dying from these
diseases have been Chinese, and caused by smoking opium.
I beg to call your attention to these people. the filth of most of
their habitations cannot be described. I have seen a family of a woman and six
children living in a room not larger than six by ten feet.
I respectfully invite your attention to the condition of these
people... it is well worthy of your serious consideration, not only from the
filthy condition in which they live, the neglect they undergo from their own
people when they are sick and can no longer work, but because they are
accumulating in our Almshouses and Lunatic Asylums.
While they are able to work they are looked after by the companies
which have imported them, but when they become sick, imbecile or dangerously
insane, they are left to themselves to lie on a piece of matting and die, or
discarded by their own countrymen, taken up by the authorities and sent to the
Almshouse or Lunatic Asylum. The companies who bring these people here should be
compelled to take care of them when they are unable to take care of themselves.
3. Conclusions
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