The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [90]
Reed was convinced that by standing in as the fourth volunteer, he could also prove or disprove a new theory of Carlos Finlay’s. Finlay believed one generation of mosquitoes could transmit yellow fever to the next. Reed had been bitten repeatedly by second-generation mosquitoes without infection, so he was either immune to the fever, or Finlay’s experiments were wrong. What better way to prove both theories than this final blood experiment?
Andrus listened to the two men argue throughout the day until, at last, Reed’s temper flared. As Reed left the lab, he declared that he would be inoculated tomorrow, and there was no use in discussing it further.
The next morning, Andrus returned to the lab to find Carroll, as usual, at the microscope on the long, wooden lab table. The morning sun brightened the lab, lighting the room and giving a silver patina to the collection of vials, jars and test tubes. John Andrus nervously approached Carroll and asked if he himself might take the inoculation in place of Major Reed. Carroll looked up from his microscope, impressed and disappointed, and answered no. Reed was determined to test Finlay’s theory as well as his own, and no one else would qualify for both experiments. Andrus reminded him that he had been feeding second-generation mosquitoes for weeks in the lab to keep the females alive; he, like Reed, could perform both experiments at once.
When Reed arrived at the lab that morning, Carroll sent Andrus on an errand, so that the two men could talk. Andrus never knew what was said, but when he returned, Reed asked if he realized what he was doing. Andrus had, in fact, nursed a number of cases of yellow jack, and he had seen many men die of it—but he had no noble intentions of saving Walter Reed’s life by risking his own. He later wrote: “I knew something of what proof of the mosquito theory would mean to humanity. I knew that Major Reed was the main spring that made the work of the Board tick and that if he was sick of yellow fever and had a slow recovery . . . the work would all but stop.”
By 12:15 that afternoon, Andrus was seated in a chair with his sleeve rolled up. The doctor swabbed the skin on his arm with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball and slid the needle in, slowly plunging 1cc of ripe blood. “I knew that, from the instant that needle pierced my skin,” Andrus wrote, “no power on earth could prevent my getting yellow fever.”
Soon after the experiment, John Andrus was sent by ambulance to Camp Lazear to await further results. He was assigned to a small tent and allowed to roam the camp, while he waited for the virus to take up residence in his bloodstream. One of the first things he did was write to his mother that he had been detailed to accompany a cavalry troop into the interior of Cuba, where he would not be able to send mail again for the next three weeks. Adding to his anxiety was the fact that Dr. Roger Post Ames, the doctor solely credited with nursing every volunteer back to health during the yellow fever experiments, was himself sick with yellow fever.
Three days later, alone in his tent, John Andrus felt a chill come on. He had complained of a headache for the last couple of days, but had shown no signs of fever. His temperature soared to 103.6 degrees. Andrus’s face was flushed, and his eyes grew glassy. He remembered being lifted into the two-mule ambulance that would carry him to the yellow fever hospital, but he never remembered arriving there.
The official report states that by the time John Andrus arrived at the hospital, his temperature was over 104 degrees and his pulse raced at 120. Restless, he complained of bright lights, a searing headache and a backache. He vomited several times. Andrus had a severe case of yellow fever.
Reed wrote to the surgeon general, “Should he die, I shall regret that I ever undertook this work. The responsibility for the life of a human being weighs upon me very heavily just at present, and I am dreadfully melancholic. Everything is being done for him that we know to do.” Reed’s guilt must have consumed