The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [82]
During construction and the experiments, Reed would often wander over and sit on the front porch belonging to the couple who owned the farm. He told them how he loved Cuba and even talked of taking his wife and daughter Blossom to visit, maybe even moving there once he retired.
While the camp was under construction, Reed turned his attention to building a healthy supply of mosquitoes. Finlay’s earlier samples might not be enough to sustain the experiments, and as cool weather approached, fewer mosquitoes would be available.
Reed picked up where Lazear had left off in his entomological studies, contacting Leland Howard in the U.S. with insect samples and questions. Boxes of paperwork covered Reed’s desk, as did two large leather volumes— 600 pages each—of La Roche’s history of yellow fever, published in 1853. If Reed’s enthusiasm wasn’t immediately contagious among the men, it soon would be. As they sat around tables playing cards or visiting on the veranda in the autumn evenings, Reed would interrupt, “Gentlemen! Listen to what La Roche says about the terrible epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793!” The men would gather in the study and listen to Reed read from mosquito pamphlets and studies. Soon, the hunt for new specimens began. Using large-mouthed cyanide bottles, they collected mosquitoes and studied them beneath a strong hand lens.
One night in mid-November, a tropical storm pounded Cuba. The low sky grew gunmetal gray as heavy winds uprooted trees, tossed tents and shook the wooden buildings. Shutters blew open and papers flew, wet and tattered. Reed’s collection of lab mosquitoes was blown out to sea. When the storm subsided, only a few dry eggs remained, and the experiments were scheduled to begin any day. Colleagues tried to convince Reed that warm weather would return soon enough, and a new supply of mosquitoes would hatch, but Reed persuaded his men to hunt new mosquitoes with him. They searched drainpipes, upturned cans, broken containers and even privy buckets to skim the surface for mosquito larvae, “wigglers,” as they called them. Along the still surface of water, they collected the black, cylinder-shaped eggs, which could be dried or frozen or hatched immediately. Returning to the lab, Reed, Neate and Andrus picked through the findings, separating “wigglers” from eggs and harvesting a whole new batch of the lyre-marked Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
The storm aside, the construction of Camp Lazear was nearly complete. Everything about the camp had to be uncontaminated. Wagons carried new tents and equipment, all in their original packaging, to Camp Lazear. Wooden floors were built where seven tents would be pitched. Personnel were carefully chosen based on their impeccable military records and an interest in experimental medicine. They also had to be in perfect health—all of the volunteers but one were under the age of thirty. The men were then quarantined.
Reed himself designed the most critical buildings for the camp with meticulous care. One would be dedicated to the mosquitoes; the other would be used to disprove once and for all the theory that yellow fever could be transmitted by objects, infected clothes or close contact. The entire compound would be enclosed in a barbed wire fence with a military guard to deter anyone from entering or leaving.
Building No. 1 became known as the “Infected Clothing Building.” Its tongue and groove wooden frame was twenty feet by fourteen feet with glass pane windows and a solid-wood, double-door entry; the windows and door were screened then boarded shut. Every precaution was made to keep the structure free of mosquitoes and sunlight. Three beds stood in the center of the room, surrounded by crates and boxes still sealed shut.
Reed sought out volunteers for the Infected Clothing Building,