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By Root 365 0

silently into his bloodstream, and three days later, on December 8, Kissinger came down with a sudden and strong chill. He shivered as his fever climbed almost immediately to 102.5. His head began to pound, and he felt as though his bones had literally been crushed. He would later describe his bout with yellow fever, “My spine felt twisted and my head swollen and my eyes felt as if they would pop out of my head, even the ends of my fingers felt as though they would snap off.” By the time his illness ended, Kissinger’s weight dropped to 118 pounds, and he would remain an invalid for the rest of his life, eventually becoming mentally ill. Years later, historian Philip S. Hench wrote that Kissinger “really ‘died’ physically and mentally when he took sick. Thereafter he has lived only one role—that of a yellow fever martyr and hero.”

“The case is a beautiful one,” Reed wrote, “and will be seen by the Board of Havana experts today, all of whom, except Finlay, consider the theory a wild one!”

Reed also wrote to Emilie: “Rejoice with me, sweetheart, as, aside from the antitoxin of diphtheria and Koch’s discovery of the tubercle bacillus, it will be regarded as the most important piece of work, scientifically, during the 19th century.”

In the coming week, Reed produced three more cases of yellow fever among the volunteers.

A haunted stigma began to surround Camp Lazear. A number of the Spanish volunteers fled, refusing any additional experiments. Rumors in Havana circulated that some soldiers had found an old limekiln filled with the bleached bones of Walter Reed’s yellow fever volunteers.

To the three men living in the Infected Clothing Building, the news of Kissinger’s case only added to their claustrophobic sense of fear, which was already cloaked in isolation and filth. If Reed could produce yellow fever under such sanitary conditions, what chance did the three men enclosed in a tomb of germs have? The men barely slept at night and began to imagine fits of fever and chills.

Just when they were at the psychological breaking point, a fresh box from a fatal case of yellow fever arrived. The box had been sealed shut for days, and when the men finally opened it, they ran out of the building into the dark, where one vomited uncontrollably. At last, on December 19, Cooke and his two volunteers were released from their twenty-night stay in Building No. 1, and the next group of volunteers entered. No cases of yellow fever ever developed from the Infected Clothing Building.

By the end of these experiments, Reed had irrefutable proof that yellow fever could not be transmitted by “germs,” infected clothing or air. He had exposed his men to every type of filth for up to twenty days at a time, and not one had contracted the fever. It toppled once and for all the prevailing theory that yellow fever could be spread by filth.

On December 21, John Moran entered Building No. 2, the Infected Mosquito Building. Much like its sister structure a few yards away, Building No. 2 had been carefully constructed by Reed. It was the same size and general make, but instead of one room, this building was split through the center with a finely woven wire screen, and the walls had not only been sealed, but also lined with cheesecloth. Again, like its sister structure, there were three cots, but these were outfitted with pristine, steamed sheets. Cot A stood on the “infected side” of the room, while cots B and C were located on the “safe side,” protected by a wall of wire that separated the two. The entire building had been thoroughly disinfected. Two other volunteers stayed on the “safe side” of the wire partition, where they would sleep for over two weeks—they were the experiment’s control group.

Reed stood to one side of the screen, his face obscured by the metallic mesh, and watched as John Moran entered the room. Moran was fresh from a bath and wearing nothing but a night-shirt, which he removed before lying down on the cot. He rested on his back, his arms at his sides, and held the mirror Reed had given him. Moran could hear the whine of mosquitoes