Prologue: Fighting the devil with fire -- Across the sea -- The Nippon Maru -- The imperial city -- Criminal idiocy -- Fault lines -- Quarantine -- Oust the faker -- An infamous compact -- An impossible task -- A most peculiar team -- As soon as possible -- The unpleasant past -- For god's sake send food -- Two percent -- The worst corner of hell -- One of California's adopted sons -- Cast aside -- A hero once more -- Epilogue: how close we came

Traces the massive effort to contain an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900 San Francisco, detailing how the process was complicated by virulent racism, pseudoscience, and political cover-ups