Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

Fantasy Football Challenge - Library of Books for Football Fanatics

Fantasy Football Challenge presents
Popular Science Monthly

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not be easily done without subjecting them to severe injury. Upon one occasion I was taking four infected mosquitoes in the pocket inside my blouse from the laboratory in Havana to the experimental camp, accompanied by my attendant Private Loud; the horse which pulled my buggy, a rather spirited animal, becoming frightened at a steam roller, as we went around the corner of Colon Cemetery, started to race down the hill towards the Almendares River: Loud was thrown out by the first cavortings of the horse, who stood on its hind legs and jumped several times before dashing away, while I held tightly to the tubes in my pocket, as the buggy upset and left me stranded upon a sand pile in the middle of the road; the mosquitoes were quite safe, however, and upon my arrival at Camp Lazear I turned them over to Carroll for his subsequent care. Another difficulty afterwards encountered was the scarcity of material susceptible to infection, for, although several men had expressed a willingness to be inoculated, when the time came; they all preferred the "infected clothing" experiment to the stings of our mosquitoes. We then thought best to secure lately landed Spaniards, to whom the probable outcome of the test might be explained and their consent obtained for a monetary consideration. Our method was as follows; as soon as a load of immigrants arrived, I would go to Tiscornia, the Immigration Station across the Bay of Havana, and hire eight or ten men, as day laborers, to work in our camp. Once brought in, they were bountifully fed, housed under tents, slept under mosquito-bars and their only work was to pick up loose stones from the grounds, during eight hours of the day, with plenty of rest between. In the meantime, as the days of observation passed, I carefully questioned them as to their antecedents, family history and the diseases which they might have suffered; those who had lived in Cuba or any other tropical country before were discarded at once and also those who were under age or had a family dependent upon them. When the selection was finally made, the matter of the experiment was put to them. Naturally, they all felt more or less that they were running the risk of getting yellow fever when they came to Cuba and so were not at all averse to allow themselves to be bitten by mosquitoes: they were paid one hundred dollars for this, and another equal sum if, as a result of the biting experiment, they developed yellow fever. Needless to say, no reference was made to any possible funeral expenses. A written consent was obtained from each one, so that our moral responsibility was to a certain extent lessened. Of course, only the healthiest specimens were experimented upon. It so happened that some reporter discovered what we were about, or perhaps some invidious person misrepresented the facts; at any rate, on the twenty-first of November a Spanish newspaper appeared with flaring headlines denouncing the American doctors who were taking advantage of the poor immigrants and experimenting with them by injecting all sorts of poisons! It called upon the Spanish consul to look after his subjects. In view of this we felt that if such campaign continued, in a short time it would either make it impossible to secure subjects or cause diplomatic pressure to be exerted against the continuance of our experiments. It was thought best to "beard the lion in his den" so the three of us called upon the consul the following day. He was surprised to hear one of us address him in his own language, having taken us all for Americans on first sight, and when I explained to him our method of procedure and showed him the signed contracts with the men, being an intelligent man himself, he had no objections to offer and told us to go ahead and not bother about any howl the papers might make. The first three cases (two of them Spaniards) which we produced came down with yellow fever within a very short period, from December 8 to 13; it will therefore not surprise the reader to know that when the fourth case developed on December 15, and was carried out of the camp to the hospital, it caused a veritable panic among the remaining Spaniards, who, renouncing the five hundred pesetas that each had in view, as Major Reed very aptly put it, "lost all interest in the progress of science and incontinentally severed their connection with Camp Lazear." But there was a rich source to draw from, and the unexpected stampede only retarded our work for a short time. Our artificial epidemic of yellow fever was temporarily suspended while a new batch of susceptible material was brought in, observed and selected. The next case for that reason was not produced upon a Spaniard until December 30. In the face of the negative experiments with supposedly contaminated articles, it rested with us to show how a house became infected and for this purpose the main part of the "mosquito building" was utilized. This chamber was divided into two compartments by a double wire-screen partition, which effectually prevented mosquitoes on one side from passing to the other; of course there were no mosquitoes there to begin with, as the section of the building used for breeding and keeping them was entirely separated from the other, and there could be no communication between them. On the morning of December 21, a jar containing fifteen hungry mosquitoes, that had previously stung cases of yellow fever, was introduced and uncovered in the larger compartment, where a bed, with all linen perfectly sterilized, was ready for occupancy. A few minutes after, Mr. Moran, dressed as though about to retire for the night, entered the room and threw himself upon the bed for half an hour; during this time two other men and Major Reed remained in the other compartment, separated from Moran only by the wire-screen partition. Seven mosquitoes were soon at work upon the young man's arms and face; he then came out, but returned in the afternoon, when five other insects bit him in less than twenty minutes. The next day, at the same hour of the afternoon, Moran entered the "mosquito building" for the third time and remained on the bed for fifteen minutes, allowing three mosquitoes to bite his hands. The room was then securely locked, but the two Americans continued to sleep in the other compartment for nearly three

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