The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915Various
Science
The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
As the idea that Carroll's fever must have been caused by the
mosquito that was applied to him four days before became fixed
upon our minds, we decided to test it upon the first non-immune
person who should offer himself to be bitten; this was of
common occurrence and taken much as a joke among the soldiers
about the military hospital. Barely fifteen minutes may have
elapsed since we had come to this decision when, as Lazear
stood at the door of the laboratory trying to "coax" a mosquito
to pass from one test-tube into another, a soldier came walking
by towards the hospital buildings; he saluted, as it is
customary in the army upon meeting an officer, but, as Lazear
had both hands engaged, he answered with a rather pleasant
"Good morning." The man stopped upon coming abreast, curious no
doubt to see the performance with the tubes, and after gazing
for a minute or two at the insects he said: "You still fooling
with mosquitoes, Doctor?" "Yes," returned Lazear, "will you
take a bite?" "Sure I ain't scared of 'em," responded the man.
When I heard this, I left the microscope and stepped to the
door, where the short conversation had taken place; Lazear
looked at me as though in consultation; I nodded assent, then
turned to the soldier and asked him to come inside and bare his
forearm. Upon a slip of paper I wrote his name while several
mosquitoes took their fill; William E. Dean, American by birth,
belonging to Troop B, Seventh Cavalry; he said that he had
never been in the tropics before and had not left the military
reservation for nearly two months. The conditions for a test
case were quite ideal.
I must say we were in great trepidation at the time; and well
might we have been, for Dean's was the first indubitable case
of yellow fever about to be produced experimentally by the bite
of purposely infected mosquitoes. Five days afterwards, when he
came down with yellow fever and the diagnosis of his case was
corroborated by Dr. Roger P. Ames, U. S. Army, then on duty at
the hospital, we sent a cablegram to Major Walter Reed,
chairman of the board, who a month before had been called to
Washington upon another duty, apprising him of the fact that
the theory of the transmission of yellow fever by mosquitoes,
which at first was doubted so much and the transcendental
importance of which we could then barely appreciate, had indeed
been confirmed.
STATE OF THINGS BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF MOSQUITO TRANSMISSION
Other infectious diseases, tuberculosis, for instance, may
cause a greater death-rate and bring about more misery and
distress, even to-day, than yellow fever has produced at any
one time; but no disease, except possibly cholera or the
plague, is so tragic in its development, so appalling in its
action, so devastating in its results, nor does any other make
greater havoc than yellow fever when it invades non-immune or
susceptible communities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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