around San Francisco. Starr fixes the California myth squarely on the shoulder of Bret Harte, who he says fixed the Gold Rush into formula. Unfortunately, the Gold Rush period marked a low in the history of California, a time when bestial behavior emerged and dominated the scene. The area was filled with murder and mayhem, shipwreck, labor and search for treasure. What Starr makes clear--and what many apparently forget when studying history, even recent history--is how easy it was to expire in those days, still long before the advent of modern medical science. Simple infections could kill, along with diseases carried by rats, fleas and lice. Also, cholera, malaria, dysentery and typhoid were present in abundance. It is a mark of the greed (desperation?) of the Gold Rush miners that they knew this fact and still ventured out into the wilds en masse to search for treasure. Alcoholism is also mentioned by the author as rampant (55), with delirium tremens affecting many of the prospectors. Naturally, the law could not stand by idly while all this
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