SOME CHAPTERS OF HISTORY. 
129 
from Havana, christened Camp Lazear in honor of the dead comrade. The 
inmates of the camp were put into most rigid quarantine and ample time 
was allowed to eliminate any possibility of the disease being brought in 
from Havana. 
“A completely mosquito-proof building was divided into two compart¬ 
ments by a wire screen partition; infected insects were liberated on one 
side only. A brave non-immune entered and remained long enough to 
allow himself to be bitten several times. He was attacked by yellow fever, 
while two susceptible men in the other compartment did not acquire the 
disease, although sleeping there thirteen nights. This demonstrates in the 
simplest and most certain manner that the infectiousness of the building 
was due only to the presence of the insects. 
“Every attempt was made to infect individual by means of bedding, 
clothes, and other articles that had been used and soiled by patients suffer¬ 
ing with virulent yellow fever. 
“Volunteers slept in the room with and handled the most filthy articles 
for twenty nights, but not a symptom of yellow fever was noted among 
them, nor was their health in the. slightest degree affected. Nevertheless 
they were not immune to the disease, for some of them were afterward 
purposely infected by mosquito bites. This experiment indicates at once 
the uselessness of destroying valuable property for fear of infection. 
“The details of the experiments are most interesting, but it must here 
suffice to briefly sum up the principal conclusions of this admirable board 
of investigators of which Reed was the master mind : 
“1. The specific agent in the causation of yellow fever exists in the 
blood of a patient for the first three days of his attack, after which time 
he ceases to be a menace to the health of others. 
“2. A mosquito of a single species, Stegomyia fasciata, ingesting the 
blood of a patient during this infective period is powerless to convey the 
disease to another person by its bite until about twelve days have elapsed, 
but can do so thereafter for an indefinite period, probably during the 
remainder of its life. 
“3. The disease cannot in nature be spread in any other way than by the 
bite of the previously infected Stegomyia. Articles used and soiled by 
patients do not carry infection. 
“These conclusions pointed so clearly to the practical method of exter¬ 
minating the disease that they were at once accepted by the sanitary 
authorities in Cuba and put to the test in Havana, where for nearly a 
century and a half, by actual record, the disease had never failed to appear 
annually. 
“In February, 1901, the Chief Sanitary Officer in Havana, Major W. C. 
Gorgas, Medical Department, U. S. Army, instituted measures to eradicate 
the disease, based entirely on the conclusions of the commission. Cases of 
yellow fever were required to be reported as promptly as possible, the 
