336 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



his associates came to the conclusion that the mosquito serves as the inter- 

 mediate host for the parasite of yellow fever. 



To prove this definitely, it was necessary to carry on experiments in 

 such a way as to make it impossible for the men experimented on to get 

 yellow fever accidentally. 



THE EXPERIMENTS AT CAMP LAZEAR 



Major Reed and his associates took a piece of ground about 6 miles from 

 Havana and built a camp there, which they named Camp Lazear after their 

 dead comrade. The camp site was well drained, and freely exposed to sun- 

 light and winds. In this camp were quartered men who had never had 

 yellow fever and who were therefore called nonimmunes. These men were 

 American soldiers who bravely volunteered for the experiment, and Span- 

 ish immigrants who gave their services for pay. 



If a person is going to have yellow fever, he develops it within six days 

 after exposure. Therefore, if the men were kept in quarantine for two 

 weeks without developing the disease, this fact would show they had not 

 become infected before they entered camp. Things were now so arranged 

 that if a mosquito was allow^ed to bite a man and the man afterward de- 

 veloped yellow fever the Board would know the disease was due to the bite 

 and to nothing else. 



KISSINGERANDMORAN -^ 



When it became known in the American troops in Cuba that soldiers 

 were wanted for yellow fever experiments, John R. Kissinger and another 

 young man from Ohio, John J. Moran, volunteered. Major Reed talked 

 the matter over with them, explaining the risk of suffering and even of 

 death. They held to their purpose. Major Reed told them they would be 

 rewarded with a sum of money. They both refused any compensation. 

 Then Reed touched his hat and said, "Gentlemen, I salute you." Kissinger 

 volunteered, to use his own words, "Solely in the interest of humanity 

 and the cause of science." Major Reed's comment on this young man was: 

 "In my opinion this exhibition of moral courage has never been surpassed 

 in the annals of the army of the United States." 



Kissinger was bitten on December 5, 1900, by mosquitoes which had 

 bitten yellow fever patients from 15 to 20 days before. Four days later he 

 had a well-marked case of yellow fever, from which he recovered. In all, 

 13 men at Camp Lazear were infected by means of the bites of contami- 

 nated mosquitoes, and the disease developed in 10. Fortunately, they re- 

 covered. No one else in the camp of 30 or 40 men became ill. 



THE MOSQUITO PROVED GUILTY 



As a result of these experiments it was found that yellow fever could 

 be carried from one person to another by the bite of a female Aedes aegypti 



