WEBVTT - The Human Guinea Pigs of Camp Lazear 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:22.450 Pushkin Hello listeners, Happy Friday. Before we crack on with 0:00:22.490 --> 0:00:25.130 this episode, I wanted to let you know that Pushkin 0:00:25.250 --> 0:00:29.850 Plus subscribers can now hear an astonishing two part story 0:00:30.090 --> 0:00:34.690 of disaster. A story of enormous egos and enormous mustaches, 0:00:34.970 --> 0:00:39.410 of fraud and financial ruin, of hubris and despair. It's 0:00:39.450 --> 0:00:43.530 a story of new technologies and of death on a 0:00:43.610 --> 0:00:49.610 massive scale, and ultimately a story of understated genius. What's 0:00:49.650 --> 0:00:55.170 this story all about? A war? A revolution? No, something 0:00:55.490 --> 0:00:59.810 even bigger a canal. After you've finished listening to this 0:00:59.970 --> 0:01:03.650 cautionary tale, you might like to check it out for Now, 0:01:03.730 --> 0:01:07.490 on with our episode and a quest to understand how 0:01:07.570 --> 0:01:18.010 the gruesome disease of yellow fever spreads. John Moran enters 0:01:18.090 --> 0:01:22.970 Building number two. It's a simple timber hut with just 0:01:23.050 --> 0:01:27.810 one room measuring fourteen feet by twenty. Dividing the room 0:01:27.890 --> 0:01:32.690 in two is a fine, strong wire mesh with holes 0:01:32.730 --> 0:01:36.850 of a fiftieth and an inch. Moran is wearing a 0:01:36.930 --> 0:01:40.850 night shirt, nothing else. He lies down on the bed 0:01:41.930 --> 0:01:48.650 around him buzz mosquitoes fifteen mosquitoes to be precise. Soon 0:01:49.330 --> 0:01:53.450 one lands on his hand. He doesn't try to squish 0:01:53.490 --> 0:01:58.050 it or flick it off. The mosquito slides its proboscis 0:01:58.090 --> 0:02:03.970 through John Moran's skin and sucks his blood. On the 0:02:04.090 --> 0:02:07.050 other side of the wire net from Moran and the 0:02:07.090 --> 0:02:12.530 mosquitoes sits. Major Walter reed, he could tell you the 0:02:12.570 --> 0:02:17.210 life story of every one of those mosquitoes. They've been 0:02:17.290 --> 0:02:20.490 sucking the blood of people who are sick with yellow fever. 0:02:21.930 --> 0:02:25.610 We're in Cuba, in an improvised U. S Army camp, 0:02:25.850 --> 0:02:30.770 just outside Havana. It's the twenty first of December nineteen hundred. 0:02:31.810 --> 0:02:36.770 Four days later, on Christmas morning, John Moran wakes up 0:02:36.810 --> 0:02:40.130 with chills and a headache. He tries to eat his 0:02:40.250 --> 0:02:44.450 Christmas lunch, but he has no appetite. By the afternoon, 0:02:44.810 --> 0:02:49.010 his temperatures climbed to one hundred and three. Is it 0:02:49.250 --> 0:02:54.130 yellow fever? Moran was twenty four years old. He'd come 0:02:54.170 --> 0:02:56.810 to Cuba with the US Army, but left to get 0:02:56.850 --> 0:03:00.730 a civilian job as a clerk. It pays better, and 0:03:00.810 --> 0:03:03.490 Moran is trying to save money to take a degree 0:03:03.570 --> 0:03:08.410 in medicine. A few weeks earlier, when Major Reid had 0:03:08.490 --> 0:03:10.930 let it be known that he was looking for volunteers 0:03:10.970 --> 0:03:15.730 for his mosquito experiments. Moran's old army friends had made 0:03:15.770 --> 0:03:18.730 sure he knew about it. Reed will pay you, They 0:03:18.770 --> 0:03:23.890 told him several months worth of salary. John Moran knew 0:03:23.970 --> 0:03:27.850 very well how deadly yellow fever can be. It had 0:03:27.970 --> 0:03:29.490 just killed the clerk who. 0:03:29.330 --> 0:03:30.770 Worked next to him. 0:03:31.050 --> 0:03:35.370 He thought about it, then went to introduce himself to 0:03:35.450 --> 0:03:40.290 Major Reed. I want to volunteer, said Moran. And I 0:03:40.290 --> 0:03:43.170 don't want money. I want to do it for science, 0:03:43.490 --> 0:03:47.810 for humanity. Major Reed looked at John Moran. 0:03:49.090 --> 0:03:50.770 I take my head off to you. 0:03:50.970 --> 0:03:55.410 He said. John Moran was bravely taking a risk for 0:03:55.530 --> 0:04:00.090 noble motives. Are we too scared to let people take 0:04:00.250 --> 0:04:05.050 risks like that? Today? I'm Tim Harford and you're listening 0:04:05.810 --> 0:04:32.570 to cautionary tales. What's it like to have yellow fever? 0:04:33.610 --> 0:04:38.970 Here's one victim describing the onset of their symptoms. It 0:04:39.090 --> 0:04:42.970 seemed as if every bone in my body had been crushed. 0:04:43.650 --> 0:04:47.370 My spine felt twisted, and my head swollen, and my 0:04:47.490 --> 0:04:50.050 eyes felt as if they would pop out of my head. 0:04:50.330 --> 0:04:52.530 Even the ends of my fingers felt as though they 0:04:52.530 --> 0:04:56.090 would snap off. If that's as bad as it gets, 0:04:56.530 --> 0:04:59.250 you're one of the lucky ones. In a week or two, 0:04:59.450 --> 0:05:03.210 you'll be okay again, But about fifteen percent of people 0:05:03.770 --> 0:05:08.970 aren't lucky. Their illness develops a second, much more serious phase. 0:05:09.610 --> 0:05:14.250 Your skin turns yellow from jaundice. You're delirious from fever. 0:05:15.050 --> 0:05:19.450 You start to bleed, perhaps from your eyes or your gums, 0:05:20.290 --> 0:05:24.890 or perhaps inside your stomach. So when you vomit, your 0:05:24.970 --> 0:05:31.690 vomit black organs start to fail. There's no treatment. If 0:05:31.730 --> 0:05:36.370 this second phase takes hold, your chance of surviving is 0:05:36.450 --> 0:05:40.770 little more than fifty to fifty. No wonder. Yellow fever 0:05:41.130 --> 0:05:46.530 once caused such terror in America's port cities. Outbreaks didn't 0:05:46.530 --> 0:05:50.530 always spread far, but when they did, they were devastating. 0:05:51.370 --> 0:05:57.170 In seventeen ninety three, yellow fever decimated Philadelphia, killing five 0:05:57.370 --> 0:06:02.410 thousand people, one tenth of the population. In eighteen fifty three, 0:06:02.890 --> 0:06:06.290 it did the same in Your Orleans. Where it came 0:06:06.330 --> 0:06:11.130 from was clear enough ships from the Caribbean in the summer. 0:06:11.890 --> 0:06:17.450 But once it had arrived, how did it spread? Was 0:06:17.490 --> 0:06:23.850 it person to person contact? In Philadelphia, people stopped shaking hands, 0:06:24.370 --> 0:06:27.930 Many shrank with affright at even the offer of a hand, 0:06:28.490 --> 0:06:33.010 observed one writer. At the time, acquaintances and friends avoided 0:06:33.050 --> 0:06:36.610 each other in the streets and only signified their regard 0:06:37.250 --> 0:06:42.050 by a cold nod. Or did yellow fever spread through 0:06:42.250 --> 0:06:47.010 something in the air. In New Orleans, the authorities burned 0:06:47.130 --> 0:06:50.970 barrels of tar and whiskey to try to clear the toxins. 0:06:52.170 --> 0:06:57.410 Or did it spread through contaminated objects. During the Civil War, 0:06:57.930 --> 0:07:03.530 a Confederate doctor plotted an early attempt at bioterrorism. He 0:07:03.610 --> 0:07:06.890 gathered clothes from people who died of yellow fever and 0:07:06.970 --> 0:07:09.890 tried to ship them to cities in the North. He 0:07:10.010 --> 0:07:14.650 even sent a suitcase full to Abraham Lincoln. The assassination 0:07:14.770 --> 0:07:22.490 attempt failed. The doctor was later elected governor of Kentucky. 0:07:23.010 --> 0:07:27.050 By nineteen hundred, the question of how yellow fever spread 0:07:27.410 --> 0:07:30.970 had become urgent for the US Army. The US had 0:07:31.050 --> 0:07:35.370 occupied Cuba, a hot bed of yellow fever. They had 0:07:35.410 --> 0:07:37.730 to figure out what to do to keep the troops 0:07:37.770 --> 0:07:41.490 as safe as possible. They set up a commission, at 0:07:41.530 --> 0:07:46.730 its head, Major Walter Reid. It just investigated how typhoid 0:07:46.810 --> 0:07:51.210 spreads on army bases. He had concluded rightly that preventing 0:07:51.250 --> 0:07:56.410 typhoid was all about sanitation. Build the trenes wash hands. 0:07:57.330 --> 0:08:00.610 But the army had been improving sanitation in Cuba, and 0:08:01.010 --> 0:08:05.610 rates of yellow fever were staying stubbornly high. What worked 0:08:05.610 --> 0:08:10.050 for typhoid didn't work for yellow fever, So what were 0:08:10.050 --> 0:08:15.490 they missing? There were theories and puzzles, like the curious 0:08:15.570 --> 0:08:19.050 case of the court martialed soldier. He was kept in 0:08:19.090 --> 0:08:23.290 a cell on a military race, closely guarded, so they 0:08:23.330 --> 0:08:26.490 knew for sure that he hadn't had contact with anyone 0:08:26.530 --> 0:08:31.490 else who'd been ill. Yet still he caught it and died. 0:08:32.370 --> 0:08:36.130 It was as if the disease had somehow flown in 0:08:36.210 --> 0:08:41.970 through the bars of the cell window. Strange. Major Reid 0:08:42.210 --> 0:08:45.810 chose colleagues to assist him. His old friend James Carroll, 0:08:46.250 --> 0:08:50.370 a brilliant young doctor Jesse Lazier. They'd go to Cuba 0:08:50.770 --> 0:08:56.250 and try to work it out. There was one theory 0:08:56.330 --> 0:08:59.530 that could explain the case of the court martialed soldier. 0:09:00.090 --> 0:09:04.770 For twenty years, a Cuban doctor had been tirelessly championing 0:09:04.850 --> 0:09:09.490 his idea that a certain species of mosquito spread yellow fever. 0:09:10.290 --> 0:09:13.530 It was plausible enough on the face of it. Another 0:09:13.570 --> 0:09:17.170 species of mosquito had just been discovered to transmit malaria, 0:09:17.930 --> 0:09:21.850 why not yellow fever too. The problem was that the 0:09:21.930 --> 0:09:25.330 Cuban doctor had been trying for twenty years to prove 0:09:25.370 --> 0:09:30.730 his theory, with no success. He bred mosquitoes and let 0:09:30.770 --> 0:09:35.090 them feed on yellow fever patients. Then he persuaded nearly 0:09:35.130 --> 0:09:38.810 one hundred people to be bitten by those mosquitoes. If 0:09:38.850 --> 0:09:42.330 that seems like an insane thing to agree to, remember 0:09:42.370 --> 0:09:44.530 that it can't have seemed that much of a risk. 0:09:45.210 --> 0:09:49.610 Yellow fever was common, so were mosquitoes, and hardly anyone 0:09:49.690 --> 0:09:53.450 bought the idea that the two were linked, And with 0:09:53.650 --> 0:09:58.490 every new volunteer, the doctor's theory seemed less and less 0:09:58.650 --> 0:10:01.850 likely to be true. Only a few of those bitten 0:10:02.010 --> 0:10:04.930 got ill, and most of them had symptoms that were 0:10:05.130 --> 0:10:08.490 hard to diagnose with confidence. They might have had a 0:10:08.530 --> 0:10:12.330 mildcare of yellow fever, or it might have been something else. 0:10:12.650 --> 0:10:19.050 It was hard to say. Just one volunteer unmistakably got 0:10:19.170 --> 0:10:23.090 yellow fever soon after the mosquito bite, and who could 0:10:23.130 --> 0:10:25.890 be sure that wasn't a coincidence. He might have got 0:10:25.930 --> 0:10:31.290 it somewhere else. So the evidence wasn't promising, But Major 0:10:31.370 --> 0:10:34.850 Reed and his colleagues wanted to test the theory for themselves. 0:10:35.370 --> 0:10:38.890 They visited the Cuban doctor who gave them some mosquito 0:10:38.970 --> 0:10:41.410 eggs hid bread. The eggs were. 0:10:41.370 --> 0:10:46.090 A jet black color, one end rounded and blunt, while 0:10:46.130 --> 0:10:50.370 the other is slightly pointed, the whole closely resembling a 0:10:50.490 --> 0:10:51.530 cancheedah cigar. 0:10:52.730 --> 0:10:55.650 Put them in water, said the Cuban doctor, and in 0:10:55.730 --> 0:11:00.250 ten to twelve days you'll have mosquitoes. Reed put his 0:11:00.370 --> 0:11:05.410 young colleague Jesse Lazier in charge. That made sense. Laziir 0:11:05.530 --> 0:11:10.490 had worked on malaria. He knew mosquitoes hatched the eggs, 0:11:10.810 --> 0:11:14.770 and kept each mosquito in its own test tube plugged 0:11:14.850 --> 0:11:17.930 with cotton. He'd take them to a hospital with a 0:11:18.010 --> 0:11:21.610 yellow fever ward, sit by the bedside of a patient, 0:11:22.290 --> 0:11:25.610 remove the cotton plug, and put the open end of 0:11:25.650 --> 0:11:29.370 the test tube to the patient's skin. He'd flick the 0:11:29.450 --> 0:11:33.330 test tube to get the mosquito moving. Once the mosquito 0:11:33.490 --> 0:11:36.770 had drunk its fill of the patient's blood, he'd plug 0:11:36.850 --> 0:11:42.170 the test tube again. Could these mosquitoes now infect someone 0:11:42.250 --> 0:11:46.210 with yellow fever? There was only one way to find out. 0:11:46.650 --> 0:11:49.530 Lazir put a test tube on his arm and let 0:11:49.530 --> 0:11:53.450 the mosquito feed on him. An army doctor said he'd 0:11:53.490 --> 0:11:56.850 take a bite two. How risky was it really? The 0:11:56.930 --> 0:11:59.770 Cuban doctor had done this to nearly one hundred people, 0:11:59.890 --> 0:12:04.450 and almost all had been fine. The odds seemed firmly 0:12:04.610 --> 0:12:08.730 in their favor. Days passed, and Lazir and the army 0:12:08.730 --> 0:12:14.690 doctor remained in perfect health. Other soldiers volunteered too, nobody 0:12:14.770 --> 0:12:18.890 got ill. Lazier was fast giving up on the theory. 0:12:19.210 --> 0:12:22.690 He told his colleague on the Commission, James Carroll, and 0:12:22.810 --> 0:12:27.730 now one of his carefully nurtured mosquitoes seemed about to die. 0:12:28.450 --> 0:12:31.210 It had sucked the blood of one yellow fever patient, 0:12:31.850 --> 0:12:35.330 but had since been refusing to feed again. It was 0:12:35.450 --> 0:12:39.770 listless without another blood meal, it wouldn't last for long. 0:12:40.970 --> 0:12:44.690 Carol had never believed in the mosquito theory. Put your 0:12:44.690 --> 0:12:47.370 mosquito on me, he said, I'll see if I can 0:12:47.410 --> 0:12:52.810 feed it to keep it going for you. There were 0:12:53.010 --> 0:12:58.530 two things Jesse Lazier and James Carroll didn't know. They 0:12:58.530 --> 0:13:01.890 didn't know that for a mosquito to pass on yellow fever, 0:13:02.370 --> 0:13:04.970 it needs to have fed on someone in the first 0:13:05.250 --> 0:13:09.690 three days of their infection. Lazier had often fed his 0:13:09.730 --> 0:13:12.610 mosquitoes on patients who had been sick for longer than that. 0:13:13.650 --> 0:13:17.650 Then it takes at least twelve days for the mosquito 0:13:17.770 --> 0:13:20.450 to incubate the virus so it can pass it on 0:13:21.090 --> 0:13:25.450 when it bites someone else. Laziir generally hadn't been waiting 0:13:25.490 --> 0:13:29.530 that long before he put his mosquitoes onto healthy volunteers. 0:13:30.610 --> 0:13:35.170 Lazier passed James Carroll the test tube with the ailing mosquito. 0:13:36.290 --> 0:13:41.050 As it happened, precisely, twelve days had passed since this 0:13:41.210 --> 0:13:44.610 mosquito had fed on a yellow fever patient. According to 0:13:44.690 --> 0:13:50.090 Lazier's notes, a patient who had been on day two 0:13:50.210 --> 0:13:55.490 of his illness, Carol, rolled up his sleeve. Lazier put 0:13:55.530 --> 0:14:00.650 the test tube to Carol's arm. The mosquito didn't move. 0:14:01.770 --> 0:14:05.850 Lazier tapped the test tube to rouse it. Still nothing. 0:14:06.890 --> 0:14:09.730 Lazier shrugged and began to take the test tube away. 0:14:10.530 --> 0:14:13.930 Give it here, said Carol. He held the test tube 0:14:13.930 --> 0:14:19.690 to his arm and waited patiently until at last, the 0:14:19.770 --> 0:14:25.570 sluggish mosquito fluttered onto his arm and slipped its proboscis 0:14:25.930 --> 0:14:31.290 through his skin. Cautionary, tails will be back in a moment. 0:14:53.490 --> 0:14:57.530 Three days after Jesse Lazier's ailing mosquito had fared on 0:14:57.690 --> 0:15:02.410 James Carroll's blood, the mosquito was doing well. So was 0:15:02.530 --> 0:15:05.530 James Carroll. He was enjoying a swim in the warm 0:15:05.610 --> 0:15:09.530 sea off a Cuban beach when I felt as sudden 0:15:09.690 --> 0:15:14.810 chill and a crushing headache. By the next day, Carol 0:15:14.970 --> 0:15:17.770 had been taken to hospital. He was running a fever 0:15:17.930 --> 0:15:21.410 of one hundred and five and trying to say something 0:15:21.450 --> 0:15:25.770 about a mosquito. The nurse couldn't follow it. He must 0:15:25.810 --> 0:15:31.490 be delirious. Jesse Lazier must have felt mortified. He had 0:15:31.570 --> 0:15:35.410 failed time and again to produce a case of yellow fever. 0:15:36.130 --> 0:15:40.370 Had he finally succeeded when he wasn't even trying? Laziir 0:15:40.610 --> 0:15:44.570 sought out James Carroll's notebook. He wanted to see what 0:15:44.690 --> 0:15:47.970 Carol had been doing for the last few days. If 0:15:48.050 --> 0:15:52.210 Carol hadn't left the camp, which was fever free, that 0:15:52.290 --> 0:15:56.130 would point convincingly to the mosquito as the cause of 0:15:56.170 --> 0:16:00.130 the infection. But Carol's notebook said he had been visiting 0:16:00.250 --> 0:16:05.090 hospital wards and autopsy rooms where yellow fever victims were dissected. 0:16:05.650 --> 0:16:10.170 Skeptics would say that he could have got it anywhere. Still, 0:16:10.410 --> 0:16:14.490 at least Lazier now had a lead a mosquito in 0:16:14.570 --> 0:16:17.130 a test tube that might have given yellow fever to 0:16:17.250 --> 0:16:21.330 James Carroll. Could that mosquito give it to someone else? 0:16:22.050 --> 0:16:26.650 Lazier needed another volunteer, and he soon found one in 0:16:26.730 --> 0:16:31.570 the army camp. The young soldier expressed curiosity about his work. 0:16:32.530 --> 0:16:35.010 You're still fallen with mosquitoes. 0:16:34.410 --> 0:16:41.210 Doctor, yes, said Lazier. Then will you take a bite? Sure, 0:16:41.690 --> 0:16:42.650 replied the soldier. 0:16:43.570 --> 0:16:45.170 I ain't scared of them. 0:16:45.290 --> 0:16:47.730 The soldier said he hadn't been off the camp in 0:16:47.810 --> 0:16:53.370 two months. That was perfect. Lazier brought the test tube 0:16:53.370 --> 0:16:56.730 with the mosquito that had bitten James Carroll and put 0:16:56.770 --> 0:17:03.570 it to the soldier's arm. Five days later, the soldier 0:17:03.610 --> 0:17:08.210 began to feel unwell. It's hard to predict how badly 0:17:08.290 --> 0:17:12.370 you'll get yellow fever. We now know there are different strains, 0:17:12.370 --> 0:17:16.210 some deadlier than others, but the younger you are, the 0:17:16.250 --> 0:17:20.850 better your chances. Children would often get it mildly and 0:17:20.890 --> 0:17:24.530 then be immune for life. The soldier was young and 0:17:24.650 --> 0:17:30.010 lucky his case was mild. James Carroll was older, and 0:17:30.050 --> 0:17:34.330 he was having a rougher time, still in his hospital bed, 0:17:34.650 --> 0:17:38.770 writhing in pain and burning up. Nurses giving him ice 0:17:38.930 --> 0:17:43.370 cold enemies to try to bring his fever down. Jesse 0:17:43.530 --> 0:17:48.450 Lazier was desperately worried about James Carroll, but he was 0:17:48.490 --> 0:17:52.890 excited too. I rather think I am on the track 0:17:53.130 --> 0:17:56.930 of the real germ, he wrote back home. But nothing 0:17:57.010 --> 0:18:01.370 must be said as yet, not even a hint. And 0:18:01.410 --> 0:18:09.810 then the story gets murky. The Yellow Fever COMMISSI remember, 0:18:10.050 --> 0:18:13.890 was headed by Major Walter Reid. Where was Major Reid? 0:18:14.010 --> 0:18:18.930 While all this drama was unfolding in Cuba? Reid was 0:18:19.010 --> 0:18:22.530 back in America. He had to finish his big report 0:18:22.610 --> 0:18:25.690 on typhoid and present it to his bosses in Washington, 0:18:25.770 --> 0:18:29.650 d c. He got a telegram describing his old friend 0:18:29.810 --> 0:18:32.130 James Carroll's bite and illness. 0:18:32.970 --> 0:18:36.650 He wrote back, I cannot begin to describe my mental 0:18:36.730 --> 0:18:41.770 distress over this most unfortunate turn of affairs. The next 0:18:41.770 --> 0:18:46.850 piece of news was more positive. Carol at last had 0:18:46.890 --> 0:18:51.210 begun to pull through. His fever was down. There'd been 0:18:51.250 --> 0:18:55.170 none of the dreaded black vomit. He was weak, but 0:18:55.290 --> 0:18:58.930 he'd live. Read fired off a letter. 0:18:59.570 --> 0:19:05.730 My dear Carol Hip Hurrah, God be praised. I can 0:19:05.850 --> 0:19:09.250 never recall such a sense of relief in all my life. 0:19:09.850 --> 0:19:13.170 I shall simply go out and get boiling drunk. God 0:19:13.170 --> 0:19:14.130 bless you, my boy. 0:19:14.930 --> 0:19:20.410 And then another telegram Jesse Lazier had got yellow fever. 0:19:21.450 --> 0:19:31.650 The message was blunt, severe case. What had happened? According 0:19:31.690 --> 0:19:36.010 to Jesse Lazier, this is what had happened. He was 0:19:36.130 --> 0:19:39.530 in a hospital at the bedside of a yellow fever patient, 0:19:40.010 --> 0:19:43.650 holding a test tube to the patient's skin. The mosquito 0:19:43.730 --> 0:19:47.570 in the tube had just started to feed. Then, said Lazier, 0:19:48.370 --> 0:19:52.010 another mosquito that happened to be in the room landed 0:19:52.170 --> 0:19:55.730 on his hand. He didn't want to move because he 0:19:55.770 --> 0:19:58.610 had disturbed the insect in the test tube and have 0:19:58.730 --> 0:20:02.090 to start all over again. And he thought the mosquito 0:20:02.130 --> 0:20:05.250 on his hand was from a different species, one that 0:20:05.490 --> 0:20:09.650 wasn't suspected of spreading the disease, so he let the 0:20:09.690 --> 0:20:18.810 mosquito bite him. Historians think that isn't plausible. Lazia, remember, 0:20:19.250 --> 0:20:23.610 was a mosquito expert. He'd studied malaria. He had been 0:20:23.610 --> 0:20:28.890 spending day after day intently observing his mosquitoes in test tubes. 0:20:29.490 --> 0:20:35.170 He affectionately called them his birds. In their book Yellow Jack, 0:20:35.690 --> 0:20:40.010 the authors John Pierce and James Writer say it simply 0:20:40.050 --> 0:20:43.810 does not make sense that Lazier did not recognize what 0:20:43.930 --> 0:20:49.010 species of mosquito had landed on his own hand. What 0:20:49.210 --> 0:20:57.570 historians think happened is this Jesse Lazier experimented on himself again. 0:20:59.090 --> 0:21:03.650 Today he claimed he had been bitten by accident. September thirteenth, 0:21:03.970 --> 0:21:10.130 nineteen hundred. Lazia's notebook contains a cryptic entry. Up till 0:21:10.170 --> 0:21:13.170 then he had recorded the names of all his volunteers, 0:21:13.850 --> 0:21:16.650 along with the history of the mosquitoes that fed on them. 0:21:17.890 --> 0:21:22.690 This entry simply said, guinea pig number one in the 0:21:22.770 --> 0:21:27.050 mosquito it had fed on a patient in the second 0:21:27.130 --> 0:21:32.170 day of his illness, fourteen days earlier. If Lazier had 0:21:32.210 --> 0:21:36.330 formed a theory about the timelines required to transmit yellow fever, 0:21:36.930 --> 0:21:40.810 this was exactly the mosquito he'd have chosen to put 0:21:40.850 --> 0:21:47.290 that theory to the test. It's possible, of course, that 0:21:47.370 --> 0:21:51.090 Lazier had suddenly decided to feed one of his mosquitoes 0:21:51.570 --> 0:21:55.130 on an actual guinea pig, but as nobody on the 0:21:55.130 --> 0:21:59.410 commission had ever discussed doing experiments on guinea pigs, it 0:21:59.450 --> 0:22:04.130 seems unlikely. We can only presume that guinea pig number 0:22:04.130 --> 0:22:11.250 one was Jesse Lazier. Why it on himself and why 0:22:11.370 --> 0:22:17.210 hide it? We'll never know. Five days after guinea pig 0:22:17.330 --> 0:22:22.210 number one was bitten, Jesse Lazier began to feel unwell. 0:22:23.770 --> 0:22:25.810 He sat down to write a letter to his mother, 0:22:26.010 --> 0:22:29.010 who was taking care of his wife back in America. 0:22:29.970 --> 0:22:33.290 His wife had just given birth to their second child. 0:22:33.890 --> 0:22:35.330 He didn't mention his illness. 0:22:36.250 --> 0:22:38.930 Dear little Houston must be very cute. 0:22:38.970 --> 0:22:44.770 He wrote. Houston was their toddler. The next day, Lazier 0:22:45.010 --> 0:22:49.330 was carried to the hospital. James Carroll had recovered enough 0:22:49.490 --> 0:22:54.930 just about to shuffle over to Lazier's bedside. I shall 0:22:54.930 --> 0:22:59.330 never forget the expression of alarm in his eyes, he said. 0:23:01.210 --> 0:23:06.290 Lazier's illness moved quickly to the deadly second stage. He 0:23:06.370 --> 0:23:09.890 thrashed around so much nurses had to call for soldiers 0:23:09.930 --> 0:23:13.090 to strap his wrists and ankles to the bed. He 0:23:13.170 --> 0:23:19.250 began to convulse and vomit. The vomit was black. Jesse 0:23:19.330 --> 0:23:32.050 Lazier was thirty four years old when yellow fever killed him. 0:23:32.250 --> 0:23:35.850 As Major Walter Reed prepared to return to Cuba, he 0:23:35.930 --> 0:23:38.650 had a problem. It wasn't just that one of his 0:23:38.810 --> 0:23:41.690 team was dead and another would need a long time 0:23:41.730 --> 0:23:45.930 off to recover. Their self. Sacrifice had gone to waste. 0:23:46.850 --> 0:23:50.890 They'd been brave in getting bitten, but they hadn't been scientific, 0:23:51.450 --> 0:23:55.050 as Reid explained in a frustrated letter to the convalescing 0:23:55.290 --> 0:23:56.130 James Carroll. 0:23:57.170 --> 0:24:00.770 If you, my dear doctor, had, prior to your bait, 0:24:00.930 --> 0:24:03.730 remained at the camp for ten days, then we would 0:24:03.770 --> 0:24:07.690 have a clear case. But you didn't. You went just 0:24:07.810 --> 0:24:11.010 where you might have contracted the disease from another sauce. 0:24:11.970 --> 0:24:16.050 And what about Jesse Lazier. According to his own account, 0:24:16.490 --> 0:24:20.650 he had been bitten while at a yellow fever hospital. 0:24:20.770 --> 0:24:24.570 For goodness sake, that knocks his case out, wrote Reed. 0:24:25.330 --> 0:24:29.210 I mean, as a thoroughly scientific experiment. 0:24:29.930 --> 0:24:33.050 There was the young soldier Lazier had infected with the 0:24:33.050 --> 0:24:38.010 same mosquito as Carol. His case was highly suggestive, but 0:24:38.090 --> 0:24:43.010 not conclusive, not yet to remove any doubt. Walter Reed 0:24:43.170 --> 0:24:47.290 was going to have to do more thoroughly scientific experiments, 0:24:48.370 --> 0:24:56.170 and for that he'd need more volunteers. Cautionary tales will return. 0:25:07.210 --> 0:25:10.650 Walter Reed needed a sight to construct a new camp. 0:25:11.330 --> 0:25:13.290 It had to be in a part of Cuba that 0:25:13.570 --> 0:25:17.570 wasn't known for yellow fever. He needed well drained land 0:25:17.810 --> 0:25:21.690 with no stagnant water for mosquitoes to breed. He couldn't 0:25:21.770 --> 0:25:25.530 risk stray mosquitoes buzzing in to mess up his experiments. 0:25:26.170 --> 0:25:29.770 He found a two acre site and brought in brand 0:25:29.890 --> 0:25:33.010 new tents and equipment so nobody could say they might 0:25:33.010 --> 0:25:36.930 have been contaminated. He had the workers quarantined to make 0:25:36.970 --> 0:25:40.730 sure they weren't harboring the disease. He then had them 0:25:40.730 --> 0:25:46.130 tested for fever three times a day. The workers put 0:25:46.370 --> 0:25:51.250 up the tents and two simple wooden buildings in honor 0:25:51.370 --> 0:25:56.930 of their fallen colleague. They called it Camp Laziar. Building 0:25:57.010 --> 0:26:00.850 number one had nothing to do with mosquitoes. Reid wanted 0:26:00.890 --> 0:26:05.050 to disprove once and for all the idea that contaminated 0:26:05.130 --> 0:26:08.810 clothing could spread yellow fever. It was a simple wooden 0:26:08.850 --> 0:26:13.970 shed fourteen feet by twenty with shuttered windows. By now 0:26:14.250 --> 0:26:18.850 it was November, the weather was cooling down. Reed wanted 0:26:18.850 --> 0:26:22.370 a fair test in tropical conditions, so he had a 0:26:22.410 --> 0:26:26.090 stove installed in the room to keep the temperature above 0:26:26.290 --> 0:26:32.330 ninety degrees fahrenheit. Reed got three volunteers to go into 0:26:32.370 --> 0:26:36.490 the dark and sweltering hut with a tightly sealed trunk. 0:26:36.810 --> 0:26:39.290 It had sent from the yellow fever ward at a 0:26:39.330 --> 0:26:45.970 nearby hospital. The trunk contained bed sheets and blankets, all 0:26:46.650 --> 0:26:51.530 soiled with a liberal quantity of black vomit urine and 0:26:51.690 --> 0:26:56.650 fecal matter. The three men cracked open the trunk and 0:26:56.770 --> 0:27:02.290 straightway ran back outside, gasping and wretching, and got their breath, 0:27:03.050 --> 0:27:07.530 stealed their nerves, and went back in. They took the 0:27:07.570 --> 0:27:11.330 fetid sheets and blankets out of the trunk and gave 0:27:11.370 --> 0:27:15.170 them all a good shake. If there were contagious particles 0:27:15.570 --> 0:27:19.010 that ought to spread them around. Then they put the 0:27:19.050 --> 0:27:22.090 sheets on the beds in the hut and slept on 0:27:22.170 --> 0:27:24.930 them for twenty nights. 0:27:25.610 --> 0:27:27.850 We all felt like we were coming down with yellow 0:27:27.930 --> 0:27:29.210 fever every day. 0:27:29.530 --> 0:27:35.090 Said one, but they didn't. It was conclusive proof that 0:27:35.170 --> 0:27:40.250 this long held theory was wrong. The Kentucky Doctor's suitcase 0:27:40.530 --> 0:27:45.450 could never have killed Abraham Lincoln Walter Reed had been 0:27:45.490 --> 0:27:49.090 confident that the volunteers in Building number one were never 0:27:49.290 --> 0:27:55.170 in danger of death, just discomfort. The mosquito experiments for 0:27:55.330 --> 0:28:00.970 a different matter, Reid had studied Jesse Lazier's notebook. He'd 0:28:01.010 --> 0:28:05.210 talked to the young soldier Lazier had infected, and he 0:28:05.210 --> 0:28:10.370 had drawn the correct conclusion. He needed an incubation period 0:28:10.770 --> 0:28:15.850 of at least twelve days. The new knowledge meant Reed's 0:28:15.890 --> 0:28:20.410 experiments at Camp Lazier wouldn't be like Jesse Lazier's earlier, 0:28:20.530 --> 0:28:24.250 more casual attempts, when the volunteers could take comfort in 0:28:24.410 --> 0:28:28.010 odds of one in one hundred. Red knew that his 0:28:28.170 --> 0:28:33.090 volunteers were very likely to get yellow fever. He wanted 0:28:33.090 --> 0:28:36.650 them to know that. So Reid had a form typed 0:28:36.770 --> 0:28:41.090 up spelling out the risks, and every time someone asked 0:28:41.090 --> 0:28:47.850 a volunteer he got them to sign it. Informed consent 0:28:48.210 --> 0:28:54.810 is standard practice. Now Reid was its pioneer. But why 0:28:54.850 --> 0:28:59.810 would anyone sign We heard already the young idealist John 0:28:59.890 --> 0:29:05.330 Moran explain his reasons for science and humanity, and Moran 0:29:05.450 --> 0:29:08.610 didn't want the money, even though he was saving hard 0:29:08.650 --> 0:29:12.330 to go to medical school, and in today's terms, Reed 0:29:12.490 --> 0:29:17.090 was offering many thousands of dollars. Others did want the money, 0:29:17.450 --> 0:29:21.250 and they had another pragmatic reason too. If you moved 0:29:21.290 --> 0:29:24.530 to Cuba from a place without yellow fever, so you 0:29:24.530 --> 0:29:28.010 weren't immune from childhood, you felt sure that you'd get 0:29:28.090 --> 0:29:32.090 it sooner or later, So why not take your chances now, 0:29:32.610 --> 0:29:36.210 knowing you'd have the most attentive medical care. The US 0:29:36.370 --> 0:29:44.730 Army could offer. In March twenty twenty, the enormity of 0:29:44.810 --> 0:29:48.290 the COVID pandemic was starting to dawn on the world. 0:29:49.250 --> 0:29:51.690 Most of us were trying to make sense of the present, 0:29:52.370 --> 0:29:56.850 but three academics were looking to the future. We're going 0:29:56.850 --> 0:30:00.930 to need vaccines, they said, as quickly as possible. Those 0:30:01.010 --> 0:30:04.330 vaccines were already being developed and would need to be tested, 0:30:05.010 --> 0:30:08.690 but the traditional clinical trial might take a long time. 0:30:09.970 --> 0:30:13.130 A big group of volunteers would receive either the new 0:30:13.210 --> 0:30:17.010 vaccines or a placebo and would then go about their 0:30:17.090 --> 0:30:22.530 daily lives. Some of them eventually would get COVID, allowing 0:30:22.610 --> 0:30:25.970 scientists to figure out whether most of these cases were 0:30:26.010 --> 0:30:29.570 in the placebo group, in which case the vaccine would 0:30:29.570 --> 0:30:33.130 have worked. But since most people around the world were 0:30:33.170 --> 0:30:37.730 trying very hard not to spread the virus, just waiting 0:30:37.850 --> 0:30:41.370 for enough of those infections to happen by accident could 0:30:41.450 --> 0:30:47.370 take months. Wouldn't it be quicker to deliberately expose your 0:30:47.450 --> 0:30:52.690 volunteers to COVID. That's called a human challenge trial, and 0:30:52.730 --> 0:30:57.250 they've often been used to develop other vaccines. Josh Morrison 0:30:57.410 --> 0:31:01.570 ran a health nonprofit in New York. He thought ourd 0:31:01.650 --> 0:31:03.970 volunteer to get COVID if it might speed up a 0:31:04.050 --> 0:31:07.370