Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-30

| timated at more than fifteen millions Other
countries have been subjected to the same
terrorS year after year and have suffered
similar losses, until Walter Reed taught
the medical profession how to prevent and
escape Them
DR.. Reeds Career.
Reed was native of Gloucester county,
Va, the son Of a clergyman, was born in
1851 and graduated from the University of
Virginia when he was only seventeen years
old. He served In Bellevue Medical Hospital
in New York, in the City Hospital on Black
wells Island and in the Brooklyn City Hos
pital, and before he became of age was
district physician in that city. He entered
the army of the United States as assistant
| surgeon in 1875, and during the next eight
cen years served in Arizona, Nebraska,
Dakota and other parts of the west and
south, devoting all his spare time to study
and laboratory work and acquiring repu-
tation for accurate diagnosis and sound
judgment in the treatment of diseases. In
1880 he worked for year at Johns Hopkins
and from there went to the Army Medical
Museum in Washington, and served as
professor of bacteriology in the Army Meoi-
cal School. He specialized in epidemic dis
eases and wrote many valuable and origi-
nal monographs concerning them. During
the early part of the Spanish-American war
he was chairman of a board to investigate
the causes of typhoid fever in the volunteer
camps and demonstrated the truth of the
theory that it was largely due to the COM
mon ny, as wen as Dy contaminated drink
ing water. The germs of the disease were
carried by flies from offal of the camp to
the kitchens.
The Yellow Fever Experiments.
In June, 1900 Major Reed was sent to
Cuba with Surgeons James Carroll Jesse
w. Lazear and A. Agramonte to investigate
the yellow fever epidemic and shortly after
his arrival made the acquaintance of Dr.
Carlos Finley, who had for several years
advanced the theory that a mosquito con-
veyed the infection, but had not been able
to demonstrate its truth. Reed applied to
Gen. Wood for permission to conduct ex-
, periments with human subjects and lib
eral sum of money was appropriated to pay
persons who would submit themselves to
tests. DR.. Finley gave him the eggs of the
stegomyia. which he hatched and then put
the mosquitoes upon yellow fever patients
SO that they were filled with the infected
blood. DIR. Carroll. a member of the COM
mission, was the first volunteer and suf-
fered a very severe attack. DR.. Lazear also
submitted to the experiment acquired the
disease in its most virulent form and died
a martyr to science. Spanish immigrants
and volunteers from the United States army
also volunteered as subjects for q compen-
sation of $500 each. They were placed in
a yellow fever hospital and insects filled
with the blood of patients were allowed to
| bite them. Other men were employed to
sleep in the beds and to wear the clothes
| of patients who had died of yellow fever,
and this ordeal was more dreaded than the
mosquito test, but 1t proved not to be dan
gerous. One man slept thirteen nights in
the clothing and in the bed of patient who
| had died of virulent yellow fever and was
not attacked. Later he was bitten by
mosquito and was shortly afterward taken
down by the disease. For twenty nights
several paid volunteers slept in the room
with yellow fever patients, in their cloth
ing and in their beds, and their health was
not affected in the slightest degree. This