Yellow fever : a compilation of various publications: results of the work of Maj. Walter Reed, Medical Corps, United States Army, and the Yellow Fever Commission.

  • United States Senate
Date:
1911
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Yellow fever : a compilation of various publications: results of the work of Maj. Walter Reed, Medical Corps, United States Army, and the Yellow Fever Commission. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED FOE. THE PURPOSE OF COPING WITH YELLOW FEVER. [Senate Document No. 10, Fifty-ninth Congress, second session.] To the Seriate and House of Representatives: The inclosed papers are transmitted to the Congress in the earnest hope that it will take suitable action in the matter. Maj. Reed's part in the experiments which resulted in teaching us how to cope with yellow fever was such as to render mankind his debtor, and this nation should in some proper fashion bear witness to this fact. Theodore Roosevelt. The White House, December, 5, 1906. [Inclosure 1.] [Memorandum for the President, through The Military Secretary of the Army .J War Department, Office of the Surgeon General, Washington, August 80, 1906. The persons taking an important part in the investigations in Cuba, which resulted in the demonstration of the fact that yellow fever is transmitted by a species of mosquito, were three members of the board appointed to investigate epidemic diseases in Cuba— Walter Reed, James Carroll, and Jesse W. Lazear—and the indi- viduals who submitted themselves for experimentation by receiving the bites of infected mosquitoes, by receiving injections of blood from yellow-fever patients, and by sleeping in bedding which had been used by yellow-fever patients. When the Yellow Fever Commission, composed of Walter Reed, James Carroll Jesse W. Lazear, and A. Agramonte, assembled in Habana they had no thought of investigating the connection of the mosquito with the spread of yellow fever. This idea came to Dr. Keed after the board had demonstrated that the claim of Sanarelli concurred m by Wasdin and Geddins, that the Bacillus icteroides was the cause of yellow fever was without foundation. Dr. Reed then determined to investigate the theory of Dr. Carlos Finlay that the mosquito was instrumental in conveying yellow fever, which theory Fmlay had failed to demonstrate, and which was not then accepted by scientific men. This determination was reached for the reasons which are well stated in Dr. Kelly's biography, and was original with Reed not being suggested to him by anyone. The ; nil m-7tl0n !to lnve?tlgate the mosquito theory was arrived at absents f^w T^i °f board <Dr- Agramonte being absent) at Columbia Barracks on the evening before Dr. Reed'l