Insects and Diseases: A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread or Cause some of our Common DiseasesDoane, Rennie Wilbur
Science
Insects and Diseases: A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread or Cause some of our Common Diseases
Doane, Rennie Wilbur
Insect pests; Insects as carriers of disease
"I cannot pass on, however, to what I have to say in connection
with this work without a word of admiration for the insight, the
energy, the skill, the courage, and withal the modesty and
simplicity of the leader of that remarkable band of workers. If any
man deserved a monument to his memory, it was Reed. If any band of
men deserve recognition at the hands of their countrymen, it is
Reed's colleagues."
Their first work was to determine whether any of the germs that had been
claimed to be the cause of yellow fever were really responsible for the
disease. _Bacillus icteroides_ that for some time and by some
investigators had been named as the offender was particularly
investigated, but was proved to be a secondary invader only.
Dr. Charles Finlay of Havana had been claiming for some years that the
yellow fever was transmitted by means of the mosquito and possibly by
other insects also. He even claimed to have proved this theory
experimentally. We know now, however, that there must have been errors
in his experiments and that his patients became infected from sources
other than those he was dealing with.
The Yellow Fever Commission decided to put this theory to the test and
secured a number of volunteers for the experiments. The first thing was
to let an infected mosquito bite some non-immune person. How this was
done and the results, may be told in Dr. Carroll's own words.
EXPERIMENTS
"Two separate lines of work now presented: one, the study of the
bacterial flora of the intestine and anaërobic cultures from the
blood and various organs; the other, the theory of the transmission
of the disease by the mosquito, which had been advanced by Dr.
Carlos Finlay in 1881. After due consideration it was decided to
investigate the latter first. Then arose the question of the
tremendous responsibility involved in the use of human beings for
experimental purposes. It was concluded that the results
themselves, if positive, would be sufficient justification of the
undertaking. It was suggested that we subject ourselves to the same
risk and this suggestion was accepted by Dr. Reed and Dr. Lazear.
It became necessary for Dr. Reed to return to the United States and
the work was begun by Dr. Lazear, who applied infected mosquitoes
to a number of persons, himself included, without result. On the
afternoon of July 27, 1900, I submitted myself to the bite of an
infected mosquito applied by Dr. Lazear. The insect had been reared
and hatched in the laboratory, had been caused to feed upon four
cases of yellow fever, two of them severe, and two mild. The first
patient, a severe case, was bitten twelve days before; the second,
third and fourth patients had been bitten six, four and two days
previously, and were in character mild, severe and mild
respectively. In writing to Dr. Reed that night of the incident, I
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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