Pioneers in Yellow Fever Research Carlos Juan Finlay (1833 – 1915) was a Cuban physician and scientist. He was the first to theorize, in 1881, that a mosquito was a carrier or vector of the pathogen causing yellow fever. A year later Finlay identified a mosquito of the genus Aedes as the organism transmitting yellow fever. His theory was followed by the recommendation to control the mosquito population as a way to control the spread of the disease. His hypothesis and exhaustive proofs were confirmed nearly twenty years later, in 1901, by the Walter Reed Commission headed by Dr. Reed,(1851 – 1902). His Commission disproved the common belief that yellow fever could be transmitted by clothing and bedding soiled by the body fluids and excrement of yellow fever sufferers – articles known as fomites. The research work with the disease under Reeds leadership was largely responsible for stemming the mortality rates from yellow fever during the building of the Panama Canal, something that had confounded the French attempts to build in that region only 20 years earlier. Although Reed received much of the credit in history books for beating yellow fever, Reed himself credited Dr. Carlos Finlay with the discovery of the yellow fever vector, and thus how it might be controlled. Sources: britannica/EBchecked/topic/494983/Walter-Reed and wikipedia Photos: Dr. Carlos Juan Finlay (left) and Dr. Reed (right)
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 12:03:01 +0000