11. James Carroll and the US Army Yellow Fever Commission
During the first phase of the yellow fever experiments in Cuba (infection by mosquito bite), at first, relatively few volunteers bitten by mosquitoes developed cases of yellow fever. In the late summer, 1900. Walter Reed, who supported the mosquito vector theory postulated by Carlos Finlay, left Cuba for the United States. Drs. Lazear and James Carroll supervised the testing in his absence. In August, the two doctors studied the results accumulated to that point, and found little to support the mosquito vector theory. Both concluded the mosquito bite testing provided more data to disprove the theory than to support it, and both decided to inoculate themselves via mosquito bite. They intended to disprove the mosquito vector theory and to answer rising criticism over using human beings as test subjects.
Lazear inoculated himself on August 16, and Carroll followed on August 27. Carroll did not expect to develop yellow fever, and was surprised when he did just a few days later. The same day he became ill Lazear inoculated, via mosquito, Army private William Dean. Dean also developed yellow fever within a few days. Both Carroll and Dean survived the illness, but a still unconvinced Lazear inoculated himself via mosquito bite on September 13, dying of the ensuing yellow fever a week later. Although Carroll survived the bout with yellow fever in Cuba and returned to the United States, he eventually died of complications contracted from the disease in 1907.