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Duplicate
Medical Press, Lond.
December [Sept 26.] 1906
WALTER REED AND YELLOW FEVER. (a) (a) "Walter Reed and Yellow Fever." By Howard A. Kelly,
Professor of Gynecological Surgery, John Hopkins University.
New York: McClure, Phillips and Co. 1906. DR. HOWARD KELLY has found time in the midst of
his strenuous life to carry through a task which should
earn him the gratitude of all Anglo-Saxon medical
men, namely, the writing of a biography of Walter
Reed, army surgeon, bacteriologist, and discoverer of
the intermediate host of yellow fever. To British
medical men in particular this book will be acceptable,
because so hasty is the advance of knowledge and so
fleeting are men's recollections of the individuals who
have established its landmarks, that the true romances
of scientific achievement all too easily escape the atten-
tion they deserve. And this history of the work of the
Yellow Fever Commission in Cuba is a romance in real
life, none the less poignant because it was played out
at a distance from the haunts of men and entailed a
painful list of casualties among the bright and noble
spirits which animated it. There is no devotion so
complete, so utter, as that which knowingly and in
cold blood offers life and health for the benefit of man-
kind, and of such could there be a finer example than
was presented by the two young private soldiers who
with full knowledge of the almost certain conse-
quences, offered themselves as subjects for the bite
of infected mosquitoes? Major Reed did them no less
than justice when he touched his cap and said, "Gentle-
men, I salute you." Nor should we forget the calm
self sacrifice of Dr. Carroll and Dr. Lazear; the former
was the first subject of an experimental mosquito bite,
and the latter lost his life in the cause. It is good that
all men, and especially all medical men, should learn
and cherish in their memories their noble deeds. Dr.
Kelly quite clearly establishes Walter Reed's claim to
be the first to demonstrate the actual part played by
the mosquito in the dissemination of yellow fever,
first by his patient destructive criticism of the work of
Sanarelli and others, and, secondly, by his construc-
tive experiments. The Britisher may feel a little
glow of patriotic pride when he reflects that without
Ma u se r and Ross there would have been no Reed, but
he will never be tempted to withhold his tribute of
homage from the discoverer of a verity so pregnant
with human happiness as that which Reed established.
By no means the least valuable part of the book is that
which deals with the previous history of yellow fever
and the evolution of the idea of insect-transference,
and in it full justice is done to the work of all Reed's
predecessors. When, too, alongside it we read of the
many definite facts demonstrated by the Yellow Fever
Commission, and the immediately satisfactory results
that ensued from prophylactic work founded upon the
conclusions, we feel that this is a book of substantial
and enduring worth. For it we have heartily to thank
Dr. Howard Kelly, to whom we doubt not its prepara-
tion was a labour of pleasure and a labour of love;
but he will none the less be gratified to know that his
tribute to the memory of his dead friend will find an
echo in the hearts of humble workers in the same
field on this side of the Atlantic. |
