YANN LE BEC FOR “M THE MAGAZINE OF THE WORLD”
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StoryIt was a hundred years ago. Several cases of bubonic plague are diagnosed in the insalubrious suburbs of the capital. The epidemic then provoked the start of a health crisis with consequences that are now familiar. But unlike the current situation, the episode resulted in few casualties thanks to the availability of treatment and a vaccine.
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It must have been a beautiful Sunday. It was nice outside. The adults were preparing to fish and drink fresh wine by the Seine, the children to run by the water with the little neighbors. The Rubietti were not so fortunate. On May 9, 1920, the family was trapped in their tiny, dilapidated hut in Clichy-sous-Bois, in one of these ragpicker’s towns located in the area.
This two hundred and fifty meter wide strip which encircles Paris along its fortifications forms its black belt of misery. The father, a ragpicker, suddenly started throwing up and shivering. A few hours later, it was the turn of her 8-year-old son.
For five days, the mother, seven months pregnant, watched them as best she could. In vain. On May 14, the boy, who was passed out, was rushed to Bretonneau Hospital in the 18e district of Paris. The surgeons tried, without much hope, to cure his sepsis. He died on May 15, his body covered with blue spots. The bubo, under his right armpit, was larger than a walnut. On May 16, it was his father, who had emergency surgery for an armpit abscess, who in turn died at Beaujon Hospital in Clichy. Doctors concluded that strep throat was sepsis.
At Bretonneau Hospital, pediatrician Louis Guinon is intrigued. He entrusted the review of the contents of the bubo to the head of the laboratory, Yvonne de Pfeffel, who was then in his early thirties. In an old photo, we see her face closed, hidden under thick brown curls. Perhaps she was exaggerating her severity to give evidence of her competence in an environment where female doctors were rare. A brilliant student, she was the only woman admitted to the competition in 1910 and, in a decade or so, managed to carve out a solid reputation for herself. Not only does she work with Parisian pundits, but she also publishes the results of her research in medical journals.
A disease from another time
In May 1920, when Yvonne de Pfeffel looked up from her microscope, we imagine she was banned. The examination reveals, without the least possible doubt, the presence of the bacillus of Yersin: the small patient of doctor Guinon died of the plague.
Three years earlier, on December 3, 1917, the young woman, who was replacing her chief, Etienne May, who had left for the front, had examined a child with the same symptoms as little Rubietti. The puncture of the lymph node had revealed the presence of the Yersin bacillus, but, without other reported cases, this possibility had been eliminated.
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