The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1905-09-07
The Mosquito and Yellow Fever.

So much is being written and read of
the mosquito as the active distributing
agent of yellow fever germs that re-
view of the study and experiments that
led up to the conviction of stegomia
fasciata yellow fever mosquitoes
at present particularly interesting and
timely. Previous to the occupation of
Cuba by the United States troops, yell
low fever had been considered filth
disease. Cleanliness enforced by the
military rule, however, failed to serious
ly check the outbreaks of the disease
The authorities were at loss. Men
died and the disease ragged and spread
despite their most earnest labors. Then
in the summer of 1900 the surgeon gen.
eral Of the United States army named
board of investigation.
Experiments were then undertaken
based ON theory which had been sug-
gested twenty years before by i
Carlos Binlay, a Cuban, Of Havana,
which was that the yellow fever was
conveyed by means of a mosquito. OF
eleven persons uuder observation at
this time who were bitten by con-
taminated mosquitoes, ten were unaffec-
ted and two contracted the fever, one
of them being DR.. Lazear, of the COM
mission, whose death followed. The
| circumstances attending these cases
were such as to leave no doubt in the
had been conveyed by the insect.
In November of that year an exper-
iment station, named in honor of their
dead comrade, Camp Lazear, was es-
tablished by the commission one mile
from Quende, and two experiment
houses were constructed, each carefully
screened beyond the possibility of the
entrance of mosquitoes. Volunteers
were then called for to submit them
selves to experiment. These voluntary
patients were found among hospital
attendants, American soldiers, Span
ish immigrants, all of them being nom
immune subjects. The volunteers
stationed in one of the screened houses,
termed the infected mosquito building,
were subjected to the bites of mosquitoes
which had been infected by having
bitten the yellow fever patients. The
volunteers in the other house, designat-
ed the infected clothing building, were
carefully screened from all mosquitoes,
ing, bedding and other articles brought
direct from the yellow fever hospitals.
The first volunteer who was bitten by
an infected mosquito and thus contract
ed the disease was John r. kissingcr,
of whose heroic conduct we should not
fail to recall the tribute paid by DR..
Reed. 81 cannot let this opportunity
pass DR.. Reed wrote, without ex-
pressing my admiration Of this young
Ohio soldier, who volunteered for this
experiment, as he expressed it, solely
in the interest of humanity and the
cause of science, and with the only
proviso that he should receive no pc
cuniary reward. In my opinion, this
exhibition Of moral courage has never
been surpassed in the annals Of the
army of the United States"
OF the thirteen non-immunes in the
infected mosquito building, who were
bitten by mosquitoes which had bitten a
yellow fever patient at least twelve
days previously, ten contracted the
disease. OF the volunteers who slept
in the infected clothing building, al
though they spent twenty nights there
in close contact with the bedding
clothing and tilthiest articles that had
been used and soiled by patients in the
fever hospitals suffering with the dis
ease in it's most virulent type, not a
single one contracted the fever. The
experiments we're conducted through
out with thoroughness and care and
) in scientific spirit which precluded
the possibility of error, and insured the
confidence of the scientific world in the
results achieved. The tests were ac-
cepted as proving beyond question
the truth of the Finlay theory that the
disease was transmitted by a mosquito
and cannot in nature be transmitted in
any other way than by the bite of the
(, fever mosquito, which has itself become
infected by the blood Of a yellow fever
} patient. Consequently if southern
5 fanatics sent north, as it is charged
, clothing of yellow fever sufferers during
the civil war, they were striking power.
. lessly like fangless snake.
At the time when the campaign
against the mosquito was undertaken
} the fever was raging to an extent and
with virulence as bad as it had evel