Neglect and exhaustion soon bred disease and despair. Immediately after the influx of the refugees, San Francisco Chinatown suffered the greatest tuberculosis rate in the country, six to seven times higher than the national rate at the time. The most despairing resorted to drugs, alcohol, and even suicide. San Francisco Chinatown recorded the highest suicide rate in the country: between 1952 and 1969, Chinese men took their own lives at the mean rate of 27.9 per 100,000, almost triple the national figure. (Chang 268)