The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [127]
Sternberg’s quote about mosquitoes being a useless investigation came from a letter in the Hench collection from Henry Hurd to Caroline Latimer, February 11, 1905. In the letter, Hurd relates a conversation he and Reed had in which Reed described the scene and quoted the surgeon general. The veracity of the story cannot be proven, but it does seem plausible. In what was a sad end to a skillful, twenty-year study of yellow fever, Sternberg’s judgment had become clouded by the controversy with Sanarelli. In the end, Sternberg would take credit for suggesting the mosquito possibility to Reed.
Insects
The majority of the description of the Board’s lab came from Albert Truby’s Memoir of Walter Reed, 1943. A few details were taken from other sources: The fact that the lab used to be the operating room came from John Moran’s account, and the description of the jars of black vomit was found in Philip S. Hench’s interview with Gustav Lambert in 1946.
The finer points of Reed’s first weeks in Cuba were taken directly from his letters to Emilie dated July 2, 7, 19, 20, 23, 27 and 30. Reed’s reference to returning to the United States to finish the typhoid report came from a letter written to Surgeon General Sternberg on July 24, 1900. Some details were also provided by Philip S. Hench’s interview with Blossom Reed in 1946. All of the letters are held in the Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Collection at the University of Virginia.
Other details in the chapter—like the pastimes for the soldiers—came from Truby’s account.
The majority of the material about Lazear’s time in Cuba during the summer of 1900 came from letters to his wife, Mabel, and his mother, Charlotte Sweitzer. The letters are held in the Hench collection. Additional information about his mother being twice widowed and losing two of her sons came from J. A. del Regato’s “Jesse William Lazear: The Successful Experimental Transmission of Yellow Fever by the Mosquito,” published in Medical Heritage in 1986.
Details about the visit from Dr. Herbert Durham and Dr. Walter Myers of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine came from a letter written by Reed to his wife on July 19, 1900, and from an article by Durham and Myers, “Yellow Fever Expedition,” published in the British Medical Journal on September 8, 1900. Additional information about both Durham and Myers contracting yellow fever came from B. G. Maegraith’s “History of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine,” in Medical History, October 1972 and William Petri’s “100 years of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene,” in the Americans Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2004.
The account of Aristides Agramonte’s visit to Pinar del Rio came primarily from his own account, The Inside History of a Great Medical Discovery. Additional details were provided by Reed’s letter to Surgeon General Sternberg on July 24, 1900.
The descriptions of Pinar del Rio were taken from Christopher Baker’s Cuba. Although I visited the city of Havana, I was not able to venture into the countryside around Pinar del Rio.
The remarks about Aristides Agramonte not being present at the meeting when the board decided to self-experiment were published by John C. Hemmeter in the American Public Health Reports in 1908 under the title “Major James Carroll of the United States Army, Yellow Fever Commission, and the Discovery of the Transmission of Yellow Fever by the Bite of the Mosquito ‘Stegomyia Fasciata.’ ” Most historians agree that the article was very one-sided in favor of Carroll. It was written by a former classmate of his. While there is a great deal of helpful information, his criticism of Agramonte seems unjust. Likewise, his reference to Reed abruptly leaving Cuba the morning after the meeting, found in a letter from James Carroll to