Philip Showalter Hench (1896 - 1965)

The same persistence and determination present in his professional life is also evident in Hench's research on the U. S. Army Yellow Fever Commission's famous experiments.  "As a physician particularly interested in medical history," he stated to experiment volunteer John J. Moran in 1937, "I have been long interested in the story of the yellow fever work in Havana." [1]  So began a remarkable odyssey.  At the request of his friend Ralph Cooper Hutchison, then president of Washington and Jefferson College, Hench had written Moran to gather information for the dedication of the College's new chemistry building, named for Commission member and former Washington and Jefferson student Jesse W. Lazear.  Hench also began a correspondence with another of the yellow fever experiment's original volunteers, John R. Kissinger.  Moran's and Kissinger's recollections proved so intriguing that Hench initially offered to edit and publish them.  However, in the course of his research Hench discovered that much general information on the topic was inaccurate.  Conflicting assertions concerning the participants and unverified claims by medical and governmental authorities in the United States and Cuba -- often politically motivated -- clouded interpretation of the facts.  "May I suggest," Moran consequently urged in 1938, "that a clearing up of the REED-FINLAY-CONQUEST-OF-YELLOW-FEVER, or an effort to do so, on your part, is a task far more pressing than publishing the Kissinger-Moran stories or memoirs." [2]   Hench resolved to document every aspect of the "Conquest of Yellow-Fever" and to write a much needed accurate and comprehensive history. 

For the next two decades, Hench tirelessly combed through public archive collections and personal papers in the United States and Cuba.  He met and interviewed surviving participants of the experiments and others associated with the project, as well as family members of the Yellow Fever Commission.  He sought out physicians and scientists who had worked with the principal players or who had applied the results in the campaign to eradicate yellow fever.  He identified and photographed sites associated with the yellow fever story, and he successfully petitioned politicians in the United States and Cuba to commemorate the work.  In the process, Hench became the trusted friend and advisor of many of these same individuals, and they, in turn, presented him with much of the surviving original material for safekeeping. 

In short, Hench came to be the world's expert on the yellow fever story and the steward of  thousands of original letters and documents.  His premature death at age 69 found him still hoping to uncover important missing evidence, his book unwritten.  Hench's widow Mary Kahler Hench gave his yellow fever collection to the University of Virginia, Walter Reed's alma mater, and this extensive personal archive forms the most detailed and accurate record available on the Conquest of Yellow Fever.

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