Cuban Interior - 1900

Carlos Juan Finlay

(1833 - 1915)
Son of a Scottish doctor and a
Parisienne, born in Cuba but received
early schooling in France
Jefferson Medical College Graduate
Practiced medicine and
ophthalmology in Havana
Became fascinated with the
transmissibility of yellow fever, and
that the agent of disease was in the
air

Finlay in Havana
Aedes aegypti & Carlos Finlay
Finlay hypothesizes that the common
house mosquito transmits Yellow Fever
by directly injecting the blood from an
infected person.
He does not appreciate the need for an
extrinsic incubation period in the
mosquito after it takes an infected blood
meal.
In retrospect, at most only 1 of his 104
experiments from 1881-1898
demonstrates mosquito transmission of
Yellow Fever. Many thought that Finlay
has disproved his hypothesis.
USS Maine entering Havana
Harbor, January 25, 1898
USS Maine - 2/15/98
"Burial of the dead" [1899?]
20,738 cases of
typhoid fever, and
1,500 deaths in the
first 171,000
American soldiers

Yellow fever
outbreaks in
occupation troops
spurs formation of
the Commission
The United States Army
Yellow Fever Commission
(1900 - 1901)
Walter Reed
Born in Virginia in 1851, MD at age 17 from
UVA, then to Bellevue, official of NY Board
of Health
1874-1890 in US Army as physician
Sabbatical at Hopkins with Osler and trained
in bacteriology under Welch
1893 Professor of Bacteriology at the Army
Medical School
Established importance of human to human
transmission of typhoid fever in Cuba

Jesse William Lazear
(1866 -9/25/ 1900)

Born to wealthy family in Baltimore.
Attended Hopkins, Columbia, trained in
bacteriology in Europe.
Medical resident & later head of clinical
microbiology Hopkins
Assigned to Camp Columbia Feb. 1900 as
Asst Surgeon, studies malaria and yellow
fever.
Entomologist, makes Reed aware of Ross
work on malaria, meets Finlay and
discusses his hypothesis on mosquito
transmission, and who gives him mosquito
eggs for experimentation
James Carroll
Born in Woolwich, England
6/5/1854; served in US Army
starting in 1874 as a private
Medical School at the U. City of
NY, UMD, & bacteriology with
Wm Welch at Hopkins
First works with Reed at the
Army Medical School 1893
Reeds assistant at the
Bacteriology Labs at Colombian
University
Aristides Agramonte
Born in Cuba and brought in 1870 to NY
as infant after father killed fighting against
Spain.
MD from Columbia, bacteriologist with
NY City Health Department
Assigned to Military Hospital #1 in
Havana as pathologist in charge of the
laboratories
Cuban scientist who had worked in Reed's
lab at the Columbian University in 1898,
Thought to be immune to Yellow Fever
from a childhood infection
An accomplished pathologist who
performed most of the autopsies of
suspected cases of Yellow Fever
George Miller Sternberg (1838-1915)
Member of Chaille Commission to
Havana Cuba in 1879 that met with
Carlos Finlay and concluded the
Yellow Fever was perhaps a living
entity in the atmosphere
Appointed Surgeon General in 1893.
Impressed with Walter Reeds work
with Welch at Hopkins, appoints him a
Professor at the new Army Medical
School.
1900 he establishes the Yellow Fever
Commission to Cuba
Military Orders
Establishing the
Yellow Fever
Commission - May 14,
1900
This was the 4th
Commission to
attempt to deal with
Yellow Fever along
the US coast &
Caribbean
Giuseppe Sanarelli
Italian bacteriologist who had worked at the Pasteur
Institute
1897 working in Brazil & Uruguay he reports the
identification of Bacillus icteroides in 58% of autopsies of
cases of Yellow Fever, but almost always in association
with other bacteria.
He claims to have reproduced the disease by injecting
formic aldehyde-inactivated broth cultures into 5 humans
(3 of whom died)
Colombia Barracks, Cuba
June 25, 1900 Studies Begin
Hospital Corps, Camp Columbia,
Cuba, September 1900
Lazears Impatience with Reed
Dr. Reed had been in the old
discussion over Sanarelli's
bacillus and he still works on
that subject. I am not all
interested in it but want to do
work which may lead to the
discovery of the real organism.
However I am doing as much as,
I can.
Letter fragment from Jesse W.
Lazear to Mabel H. Lazear,
July 15, 1900


Reed, Caroll & Agromonte & Lazear disprove
B. icteroides as cause of Yellow Fever
Proceedings 28th Annual Meeting of the American Public
Health Association, Indianapolis IN, October 22-26, 1900