The Hong Kong plague of 1894 – A story of Dr. Alexandre Yersin and human ingenuity.
In the summer of 1894 Dr Alexandre Yersin and Professor Shibasaburo Kitasato came to Hong Kong to assist the government against an outbreak of plague, an outbreak which was to spread across the world. Which one of them made the discovery of the bacillus was a matter of dispute at the time, but the microbe was seen through the microscope, the first time anywhere in the world that the tiny organism which for centuries had brought death and horror to millions of people around the globe yielded its identity to humanity's advancing technologies, thus opening the way to vaccines and an understanding of the disease's transmission.
Fragile considers the story of Dr Alexandre Yersin, Professor Kitasato and the Hong Kong plague of 1894 in the wider context of disease, medical and optical science and religion, through poetic and theatrical imagery, text and recorded music. The result is grim, eerie and comic.
More information on Peter Suart's web site and on the Cultural Presentations Section of the Government of Hong Kong SAR.
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