“We know,” said Private Kissenger and John J. Moran of Ohio, “we volunteer solely for the cause of humanity and in the interest of science.” Then Walter Reed told them of the generosity of General Wood. A handsome sum of money they would get--two hundred, maybe three hundred dollars, if the silver-striped she-mosquitoes did things to them that would give them one chance out of five not to spend that money. “The one condition on which we volunteer, sir,” said Private Kissenger and civilian clerk John J. Moran of Ohio, “is that we get no compensation for it.” To the tip of his cap went the hand of Walter Reed (who was a major): “Gentlemen, I salute you!” And that day Kissenger and John J. Moran went into the preparatory quarantine, that would make them first-class, unquestionable guinea-pigs, above suspicion and beyond reproach. On the 5th of December Kissenger furnished nice full meals for five mosquitoes--two of them had bitten fatal cases fifteen days and nineteen days before. Presto! Five days later he had the devil of a backache, two days more and he was turning yellow--it was a perfect case, and in his quarters Walter Reed thanked God, for Kissenger got better! Then great days came to Reed and Carroll and Agramonte--for, if they weren’t exactly overrun with young Americans who were ready to throw away their lives in the interest of science--and for humanity--still there were ignorant people, just come to Cuba from Spain, who could very well use two hundred dollars. There were five of these mercenary fellows--whom I shall simply have to call “Spanish immigrants,” or I could call them Man 1, 2, 3, and 4--just as microbe hunters often mark animals: “Rabbit 1, 2, 3, and 4--” anyway they were bitten, carefully, by mosquitoes who, when you take averages, were much more dangerous than machine gun bullets. They earned their two hundred dollars--for four out of five of them had nice typical (doctors would look scientific and call them beautiful) cases of yellow fever! It was a triumph! It was sure! Not one of these men had been anywhere near yellow fever--like so many mice they had been kept in their screened tents at Quemados. If they hadn’t been ignorant immigrants--hardly more intelligent than animals, you might say--they might have been bored, because nothing had happened to them excepting--the stabs of silver-striped she-mosquitoes.... “Rejoice with me, sweetheart,” Walter Reed wrote to his wife, “as, aside from the antitoxin of diphtheria and Koch’s discovery of the tubercle bacillus, it will be regarded as the most important piece of work, scientifically, during the nineteenth century....” Walter Reed was so thorough that you can call him original, as original as any of the microbe hunters of the great line--for he was certainly original in his thoroughness. He might have called it a day--you would swear he was tempted to call it a day: eight men had got yellow fever from mosquito bites, and only one--what amazing luck!--had died.