The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [64]
James Carroll exuded an almost bitter work ethic. Jesse Lazear, in a letter to his wife, described him: “Dr. Carroll is not a very entertaining person. He is a bacteriologist pure and simple. To me bacteriology is interesting only in its relation to medicine. He is interested in germs for their own sake, and has a very narrow horizon . . . Carroll would amuse you very much. He is very tall and thin. Wears spectacles, bald headed, has a light red mustache, projecting ears and a rather dull expression.”
Some colleagues found him reticent, crude and surly, while others described him as reliable and straightforward, though prone to “improper” behavior. He was kind and helpful in the laboratory, but also capable of profanity that would be the envy of any sailor, as one student put it.
Carroll proved in many ways to be the exact opposite of Reed, though their working relationship was described as warm and effective. Carroll’s skill in the laboratory was undisputed, but he was a self-made man, intent upon self-improvement, who worked hard to achieve what men like Reed, Agramonte and Lazear seemed to accomplish with ease. Another colleague wrote, “Carroll was a most efficient worker, but he had to be led by a man with vision, like Reed.”
Carroll’s personal relationships also seemed in dramatic contrast to those of his fellow board members. Reed sent letters to his wife showered with terms of endearment and unabashed affection. Lazear was also a doting husband and an even more doting son. Carroll’s letters to his wife, however, were cold and sometimes even cruel. In one, he chastised her for sending him fresh peaches when the price was probably exorbitant, and they would spoil anyway. In another he wrote, “Don’t bother to send me any more letters that do not interest me.”
In all, the image of James Carroll is that of a tragically conflicted man—a working-class Englishman in America; a soldier who was an enlisted officer, rather than a commissioned one; a doctor who was self-made; a frustrated husband who spoke of a lost love for the rest of his life; and a colleague who was innately proud to see his mentor recognized, while at the same time, riddled with envy.
It was a rancor that would extend to the next generation. After Carroll’s death, his son hoarded the personal letters of his father, and many records belonging to Walter Reed, in disheveled trunks in his attic. When historians in the 1940s and 1950s attempted to acquire the material, he appeared paranoid and angry, refusing to accommodate a government that he believed had robbed his father of so much.
For the next member of his team, Reed chose Dr. Aristides Agramonte, a Cuban-born doctor working in Havana. Agramonte was young, only thirty-two years old. He looked the part of a Cuban gentleman with a waxed pencil moustache, pompadour hairstyle and aristocratic features. Some of the soldiers found him to be vain, but very capable. The two men had met before in the Hopkins labs and again during Reed’s visit to Camp Columbia. Agramonte worked with Reed and Carroll for several months before the surgeon general ordered him to Havana to look for Sanarelli’s bacteria in the autopsies of yellow fever patients.Born in Cuba, Agramonte was believed to be immune to yellow fever like most other locals who had been exposed to the fever in