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only on this occasion, it felt much more formal. The officers, dressed in their army whites, listened as Reed quickly relayed the surgeon general’s orders, which included the investigation of malaria, leprosy and unclassified febrile conditions. Reed stood straight-backed as he spoke. Whether speaking to a classroom of students or a handful of officers, Reed had the rare ability to be simultaneously amicable and commanding. A former student described Reed as someone who “spoke with great clarity, precision and force. His lectures were models in English and his scientific data were assembled in perfect order. There was nothing of the dramatic in his speech or manner, but he impressed one with his earnestness, thoroughness, and mastery of his subject.”

The members of the board listened to Reed give the directive from the surgeon general with as much reverence and attention as his former students. Lazear had written to his mother that he was excited to be working with such an impressive and well-known man as Dr. Walter Reed. As the commission listened to Reed, another thought must have entered their minds: The crowning glory of this task would be yellow fever. To solve the American plague would be the greatest achievement of all. They agreed unanimously that whatever their discovery should be, it would be considered the work of the board as a body and not an individual achievement.

Reed instructed Cuban-born Agramonte, the group’s pathologist and the only member thought to be immune to the fever, to stay in Havana in charge of the lab at the Military Hospital, where there would be no shortage of yellow fever autopsies. Agramonte had already done some impressive work on the Sanarelli bacteria, so he would continue that as well. Carroll, Lazear and Reed would remain at the barracks hospital at Camp Columbia, where Carroll would make cultures from various tissues, and Lazear would study them under the microscope. Lazear could continue with his mosquito investigations as well.

It is not known how seriously Reed considered the mosquito theory at this point. His letters to Emilie do not mention it, and he kept no records of the inner workings of the board. As an investigative scientist, he surely felt curiosity at the very least. Albert Truby believed Reed had been interested in the insect theory from the start, that Reed knew this was the time and the place to finally conquer yellow fever. But Reed was also a soldier, one who took orders, followed them and led men accordingly. That left little room for thinking outside the boundaries of a given task. An officer to duty first and foremost—and under pressure from Sternberg—Reed knew that the first order of the board should be to disprove the Sanarelli bacteria once and for all, putting that ongoing and very public controversy to rest. There wasn’t time to deviate from the given course in search of a vector.

Just before he left for Cuba, Reed met with George Sternberg and discussed a possible connection between yellow fever and mosquitoes. “No,” Sternberg answered. “That has already been decided to be a useless investigation.”

CHAPTER 14

Insects

By the time the board had assembled at Camp Columbia, the yellow fever epidemic in Quemados was waning, if not entirely over. Yellow fever, it seemed, had taken its last victim for the season— though it left a lasting impression. Quemados, high on a plateau, had at one time been a safe haven for those fleeing Havana’s fever epidemics. That year, it struck the beautiful suburb with ferocity.

The momentous beginning and the enthusiasm the Yellow Fever Board felt soon stalled. Without active cases to investigate, Reed focused on setting up a lab. Built in what had once been the camp’s operating room, the lab became the focal point of their work. Along one wood-frame wall stood a tall table pushed against the window. Strong northern light fell in planes onto the microscopes of Walter Reed and James Carroll, who worked side by side. Against the far wall of the lab was another table covered in jars and lab equipment, like a glass menagerie