The Defeat Of Yellow Fever In Havana Cuba

The Defeat of Yellow Fever in Havana Cuba Yellow fever is a deadly disease that has been severely affecting countries all over the world for many years. However, one of the largest outbreaks occurred in 1878 during the Spanish American War in Havana Cuba. The disease killed more victims than the war itself, killing ten soldiers to every one soldier killed in battle. The United States Government was determined to put an end to this deadly disease. Not only were the American soldiers fighting in Havana being affected by this malady, but Havana was the primary source of yellow fever plaguing the Southern United States. The United States sent many renown scientists to Cuba in search of a way to eliminate yellow fever from Havana.

Yellow fever

He was a graduate from Jefferson Medical College and completed his medical studies in Philadelphia. Finlay was the first to hypothesize the mosquito vector theory in 1880. He believed that “the primary lesion had to be in the vascular endothelium which was weakened by the infectious agent, allowing seepage of intact red blood cells to produce hemorrhages found in yellow fever”. Finlay dedicated much of his time to studying the different types of mosquitos in Havana and he deduced that it had to be the Aedes Aegypti mosquito. He came to this conclusion because this specific mosquito lived and bred in the same area as the inhibited area. The mosquito also has very long legs, a short flight pattern, and lays its eggs in stagnant water. Despite all of Finlay’s long hours put into the research of his theory, his hypothesis was rejected by other scientists for many

He began his studies by trying to prove that “there was a relationship between Bacillus icteroides, a member of the hog-cholera group, and yellow fever”. These efforts failed and left Reed in need of a new hypothesis. He decided to turn his studies to Carlos Finlay’s mosquito vector hypothesis in 1900. Shortly after adopting the new theory, Reed began to inculcate volunteers. Over one hundred inculcations failed to produce any cases of the disease and and this lead many to give up on Finlay’s theory. Needing Assistance, Reed turned to Dr. Lazear who had been studying the malaria mosquito at the time. Lazear realized that there was a two to three week delay between the first and second cases of yellow fever in the Havana community. This lead him to “suspect that an insect was the intermediary since this would account for the delay in transmission as the disease developed in the mosquito”. Dr. Lazear’s discovery led the men to regain faith in Finlay’s hypothesis but they still needed more proof. Dr. Caroll, another man working to eliminate yellow fever, volunteered to be bitten by a mosquito. Soon after he was bitten, he developed the disease but he recovered and went back to his studies. Sensing a glimmer of hope, Lazear asked Private William Dean of Ohio to be bitten by the mosquito and he agreed. He developed the disease and recovered just as Caroll did. Still eager to test the hypothesis