PEACTICE OF MEDICINE AND HYGIENE 



quito as the host of the yellow fever germ. 

 Tliis they proved by sleeping amidst the bed- 

 ding removed from the bodies of yellow fever 

 victims. So long as the rooms were screened 

 against mosquitoes they were not able to con- 

 tract the disease. They furthermore showed 

 that if the mosquitoes could not have access to 

 people with yellow fever the mosquitoes did 

 not produce the disease. There remained but 

 one link to complete the chain; would a mos- 

 quito that had fed upon the blood of a yellow 

 fever patient convey the disease to a healthy 

 man? Among the corps of assistants there 

 were men who offered themselves for this final 

 test. Both Dr. Carroll and Dr. Lazear per- 

 mitted themselves to be bitten by mosquitoes 

 known to be infected. Carroll recovered, La- 

 zaer died. Reed and Carroll have since died, 

 having been exhausted by their labors. 



Read the letters of Walter Reed 1 to his wife, 

 written from the yellow fever infected camp in 

 Cuba, in the long nights when he kept the vigil 

 by the side of the men who were laying down 

 their lives for you and me and our children, and 

 judge if animal experimentation hardened 



^Walter Reed and Yellow Fever. By Howard A. Kelley, 

 McClure, Phillips & Co., 1906. 



7 83 



