AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS 
Two years blter. early mm the year 1900. 2 commission of army 
officers was appomted to study the disease im Havana as 2 resultofa 
number of cases which had occurred among the American troops — 
statiomed there. The Chairman of the Commission was Dr. Walter 
Reed. and his associates were Dr. James Carroll, Dr. Jesse W. Lazear, 
and Dr. Aristides Agramonte. At the very beginning, the investigz- 
tors turmed their attention to the mosquito as 2 possible agent im the 
transmission of the disease. Dr. Carlos ] Finlay of Havana had 
suggested the mosquito theory of yellow fever very convincingly 
im 1881. though without experimental proof, and the discoveries 
of Manson and Ross and Grassi and Bijnami had recently 
demonstrated 2 similar origin for malaria. Reed and his colleagues 
were fortunate im thus beginning almost at once with a correct 
hypothesis. 
The lower animals do not suffer from yellow fever, so that 
experiments upon human subjects were essential. In the words of 
Dr. Kelly's Ife of Major Reed. “after careful consideration, the 
Commission reached the conclusion that the results, if positive, 
would be of sufficient service to humanity to justify the procedure, 
provided, of course, that each individual subjected to experiment 
was fully informed of the risks he ran, and gave his free consent- 
The members of the Commision, however, agreed that it was their 
duty to run the risk involved themselves, before submitting anyone 
else to i.~ 
The first successful experiment was made with Dr. Carroll, who 
allowed himself to be bitten on August 27 by 2 mosquito which had 
previously bitten four yellow fever patients. Four days later he was 
taken sick and for three days his life hung in the balance. Both he 
and Private W. H. Dean, the second case produced experimentally 
in the same way, recovered. Dr. Lazear, however, who came down 
with the disease, not 2s 2 result of the experimental inoculations to 
which he also had submitted, but from an accidental bite, was less 
fortunate than his colleagues, for a week later he died, after several 
days of delirium with black vomit. 
An experimental station, named “Camp Lazear” after this first 
martyred member of the party, was established in the open country; 
and to the lasting honor of the United States Army, volunteer sub- 
jects for the experiments from among the troops were always in 
excess of the demand. Private John R. Kissinger and John J. 
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