Sanitation -- Cuba -- Havana; Sanitation -- Panama; Yellow fever -- Cuba -- Havana
Dr. Reed then announced that he would disinfect the room so that it
would no longer give yellow fever. When it was prepared, he again
placed a non-immune in each room, left them there for several days,
and they remained perfectly well. He explained that he disinfected
the room by simply catching all the stegomyia mosquitoes which he had
formerly liberated in the room.
This demonstration made a very profound impression. Many, however,
still urged that while it was evident that the female stegomyia
mosquito could convey yellow fever, it was equally evident from
the history of epidemics of this disease that it could be and was
generally conveyed in other ways, such as soiled clothing, bedding,
the bodies of yellow-fever dead, persons sick of the disease, etc.
Dr. Reed had a small house built, made almost air-tight and
with scarcely any ventilation. This building was known as the
infected-clothing building, and was purposely so constructed as to
exclude anything like efficient ventilation. It was placed on the
opposite side of a small valley, about eighty yards from the infected
mosquito building, and they were both about seventy-five yards
distant from the camp proper. Both houses were provided with wire
screen windows and double screen doors, so that mosquitoes could be
kept without or within the building, as the experimenter might desire.
In this building he placed material obtained from Las Animas, the
yellow-fever hospital of the Health Department of Havana; mattresses
on which yellow-fever patients had died, soiled by their excreta
and discharges; sheets, pillows and pillow-cases stained with black
vomit; the pajamas which patients had worn at the time of their
death. It was Dr. Reed’s desire to have this material infected if it
were possible to become infected in this way. Dr. John W. Ross, the
superintendent of Las Animas Hospital, therefore gave the matter his
personal attention, saw to the packing of this material in chests for
transportation to Camp Lazear, and before the chests were closed, had
basins of black vomit and other excreta from yellow-fever patients
poured over the contents of the chest. If there were any possibility
of such material becoming infected, infection certainly would have
followed such procedure.
Dr. Reed had this material opened up and spread out in the close room
I have described. He called for volunteers to sleep in this room.
Dr. R. P. Cook of the Army, and several soldiers quickly responded.
These men put on the pajamas soiled as described, and slept on the
mattresses and bed clothing soiled beyond description. For a period
of twenty days they spent the nights in this building, but for the
sake of general health were allowed to go out during the day. All
the men remained perfectly well, and no case of yellow fever was
developed from such exposure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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