Dengue

Heroism is a salamander virtue. Sometimes fear wakes immortal courage in a craven; avarice will make a miser brave; an infantryman who got the Congressional Medal for taking a machine-gun nest single-handed declared that he sallied out because he was afraid of lightning--a thunderstorm had made him too nervous to stay in his trench. But the 75 U. S. soldiers who, in the Philippines, voluntarily submitted to the bite of the yellow fever mosquito to find out whether this insect also carried dengue fever, had no such excuse. Their story was told last week in the report of Major General Ireland, Surgeon General of the Army.

Dengue fever is a scourge of hot climates. When, five years ago, it swept across the southern states from Texas to Georgia, 2,000,000 cases were reported. It is always prevalent in the Philippines. Could dengue be carried by the Aedes egypti, the mosquito against whose whining depredations Dr. Walter S. Reed won his famous "yellow fever victory" a quarter of a century ago? Medical officers asked, like Dr. Reed, for volunteers; 75 soldiers sent in their names, were exposed to the mosquito, developed dengue. That was a year ago. Now, as a result of that experiment, dengue cases in the Philippines have been reduced from 80 in a thousand to 20 in a thousand. The 75 were mentioned in despatches for "a high sense of duty and a soldierly conduct worthy of emulation by others."

In old Habana filth was the predominant motif, with yellow fever the counterpoint, U. S. health officials scoured the city clean, but yellow fever persisted epidemically. Dr. Walter Reed came with his staff from Washington to investigate. On the hunch of an old Cuban physician, he experimented with mosquitoes, heretofore unsuspected and felt fairly assured that they were the carriers of the dread malady. But he needed proof and he found it when, after months of experiments, a virulent mosquito bit and infected one of the doctors on his staff. Another intrepid physician submitted himself to experimentation, was infected, died.

Then Dr. Reed with money furnished by Governor-General Wood --now of the Philippines--set up an isolated experimental camp in an uncultivated field a mile from the city. Attracted by the offer of $250, several peons volunteered as well as a few American youths. Buck-private John R. Kissinger unflinchingly watched the mosquitoes' hypodermics charged with fever serum pierce his arm . . . waited ... no infection . . . relief The medicos tried him again . . . waited . . . heavy sickness . . . almost death. Another lad submitted, died a martyr . . . The doctors abandoned camp. They had the proof.

Worn by his tropical work, Dr. Reed died following an operation, and the government has named the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington in honor of the physician who "gave to man control over that dreadful scourge, yellow fever."