National Affairs: Yellow Fever

One night in a tent pitched about a mile from Quemados, Cuba, thirsty mosquitoes sang their monotonous whining song; on a cot, Private John R. Kissinger lay awake. It was hot and sticky; he did not slap the stinging pests away. He had volunteered to Dr. Walter Reed, head of the U. S. Yellow Fever Commission, to subject himself to the bites of mosquitoes that had sucked the blood of men ill with the fever; in this way the Commission hoped to find whether the mosquito carried the deadly germ.* He made the offer...

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