GUATEMALA EXPERIMENTS 1946-1948 
II 
workers known to be infected. 369 As Dr. Cutler later wrote “ideally, a prophy- 
lactic should be tested under normal conditions.” 370 Dr. Arnold was there to 
oversee this work. He had arrived in Guatemala sometime before February 
10, and left approximately 10 days later, arriving home in time to write Dr. 
Cutler on February 27. 
Before the experiment began, Dr. Cutler specifically designated which soldiers 
were to receive the prophylaxis and which were to receive the placebo, but 
several men’s roles were reversed on the day of the trial. 371 The commercial 
sex workers were instructed not to douche on the day of the experiment and 
were not permitted to wash between episodes of sexual intercourse with the 
men. 372 In later experiments, the researchers confirmed that the commercial 
sex workers were infected before the prophylaxis tests began, but in the first 
experiment, Dr. Cutler was unable to confirm infection status at the time of 
exposure because “the girls were quite apprehensive.” 373 
For this first intentional exposure experiment, Dr. Cutler recorded the length 
of time the soldiers engaged in sexual intercourse, and he examined each man 
afterward for “evidence of vaginal secretion and ejaculation” to “assure that 
contact had actually taken place.” 374 Dr. Cutler also recorded when the subject 
did not ejaculate. 375 While the goal of this first experiment was to “permit 
the exposure of a large group of men to infected prostitutes to determine the 
normal rate of infection with gonorrhea,” 376 none of the men involved in the 
experiment contracted gonorrhea. Dr. Cutler did not report this first experi- 
ment in his 1952 Experimental Studies in Gonorrhea report summary. 377 
After Dr. Arnold’s visit in February, 378 Drs. Heller, Van Slyke, and Mahoney 
traveled to Guatemala in April 1947. 379 Dr. Cutler worked hard to entice and 
impress these senior PHS leaders. In January, Dr. Cutler had written Dr. 
Mahoney to tell him about eight cases of Pinto (a skin disease caused by a 
spirochete indistinguishable from Treponema pallidum) that Dr. Mahoney 
could review on his visit for use in rabbit experiments. 380 Dr. Cutler withheld 
treatment for three months so Dr. Mahoney would have such an opportu- 
nity: “we hope to be able to take you to the finca [estate] to see the cases of 
Pinto and then to give them Penicillin after having taken biopsies for rabbit 
inoculations. The cases were most interesting and I am sure that you will 
enjoy the trip.” 381 
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