Quemados, Cuba

The forty nine year old Army Major sat down to pin a letter to his wife. (31, Dec. 1899)
" Only ten minutes of the old century remain," he scribbled in the Columbia Barracks.

A few weeks earlier the Military Doctor had placed a young Ohio man in sealed room with several mosquitoes which had been infected with Yellow Fever at various hours and days prior. The room was divided by a screen where his control group would sleep. The insects went about their cruel work while the men beyond the screen slept in peace. For decades the Doctor had been looking for the cause of the deadly disease. Under controlled conditions the test human and control group were monitored.
A halt would be called to construction on the Panama Canal if some solution wasn't found to this deadly problem.

He concluded: The prayer that has been mine for twenty yeas, that I might be permitted in some way or at some time to do something to alleviate human suffering has been granted! A thousand Happy New Years - - - Hark, there go the twenty-four buglers in concert, all sounding "Taps" for the old year.

Major Walter Reed