The first Brisbane case of Bubonic Plague was identified in Hawthorne Street, Woolloongabba on 27 April 1900.
Although we think we’re badly off when suffering flu symptoms, we can be thankful that we’re not living in the 1900s in the days of the Bubonic Plague (also known as the Black Death because of dark patches on the skin caused by bleeding under the skin).
The origin of the outbreak in Queensland was traced to an infection carried by rats arriving aboard vessels from Sydney, at a time when the plague was known to exist there. The infection spread to local rats then to humans.
The first case in Brisbane was James Drevesen who lived in Hawthorne Street, Woolloongabba. He was a van driver employed to remove goods from the wharves where dead and plague-infected rats were found. Twenty five deaths were recorded from fifty-six reported cases of the disease. (Source: SLQ & The Queenslander, 5 May, 1900).
The house on the left is where the first case of Bubonic Plague was identified in Brisbane on 27 April 1900. It was occupied by James Drevesen, a van driver whose job it was to take goods from the wharves where dead and plague-infected rats were found. Both houses are sealed off with quarantine barricades, (SLQ # 47425).
Another view of the quarantine barricades.