Letter from John J. Moran to Philip Showalter Hench, October 30, 1938 |
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Havana, Oct. 30, 1938. (Sunday)
Dr. Philip S. Hench,
MAYO CLINIC,
Rochester, Minn.
My dear Dr. Hench:
I am going to make a trial at long-distance psychology. You will
have been thinking that your letter of July 13th "rubbed me" the wrong way;
that I had indexed you as too pro-Kissinger and that I was not "big enough",
spiritually, to take it. No doubt my long silence justified such a line of
thinking on your part. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. When your letter was received, my wife's mother was very [ill] and on
August 20th she passed away. She was a second mother to me, not merely a
mother-in-law. Mrs. Moran, some four years ago, got herself into such a
nervous state, following the death of her uncle, that she developed asthma
which lasted for the better part of a year. That year played havoc with
her health and my own. What with being suddenly awakened, sometimes as
many as four times during the night, to find her gasping for breath, you can
well imagine how we both suffered. Injections of Ephedrine ONLY afforded
her relief. Since her mother became ill, I had to take every precaution
against a recurrence of her old ailment. My task was to prepare her for
the inevitable. Following her mother's death and since, that task has not
been lightened, but I can see daylight now. I am going into this matter
more than I othewise would for the simple reason that I value your good
opinion. Placing it on that basis, therefore, I trust you will pardon me
for imposing on your time with my family affairs. Now, as to Kissinger and myself. I am sure our respective stories,
as written or related to you, cannot be reconciled. The truth is that one
or the other of us is suffering from a short memory and has so consistently
deviated from the real truth as not to realize it, repeating the story so
often as to be now convinced of its absolute accuracy. Since you find that
you cannot dovetail our respective accounts, you are free to take your choice.
I, for one, have no intention of taking issue with any of Kissinger's state-
ments. Time has gone by for that. Kissinger's story started a long time
ago, to be exact, when he applied for a pension because of his then unfortun-
ate condition; later on when a national appeal was made in his behalf for
"Dream Home". Please do not think I am influenced by my friends in any
opinion I may have formed of Kissinger and his statements. I know his story
very well, having had it from one of those most actively engaged in bettering
his condition in life. You asked for my story and I gave it to you. I do
not claim infallibility and never have. At the same time I am entirely
certain that, of all those named on the Roll of Honor, my memory of the
episode with which we are dealing is more accurate than that of any of those
on that Roll living today. Please do not think I am patting myself on the
back when I make that statement. You state in your letter that there are parts of my story which
do not agree with the record. There is one omission in the record which
I have never made any effort to correct. That refers to the blood test.
See page four, line 37 of my story. That, of course, while true, should
be eliminated. I am perfectly satisfied to let the record stand as it
reads against my name on the Roll of Honor. All of General Sternberg's
personal and official papers on the yellow fever experiments were made avail-
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Dr. Philip S. Hench.
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Oct. 30, 1938.
able to the officer designated by the Surgeon General of the Army to prepare and
edit the Roll of Honor, as were the letters of Major Reed to Mrs. Reed in
the same connection. That officer was General Jefferson R. Kean, Medical
Corps, U. S. Army, on the retired list since 1924. General Merritte W.
Ireland, Surgeon General of the Army at the time when the Act of February
28th, 1929, became law, designated General Kean for the task because he knew
he was the highest living authority to pass on the Reed Board's work and on
the respective merits of every man whose name was to appear on the Roll of
Honor. Every word was weighed very carefully on the finished ROLL and if
you have read it carefully you will find a statement there against my name
that you will not find in connection with any of the remaining seventeen of
those who volunteered for the experiments. If you have not found it, I
certainly shall not enlighten you. Regardless of that statement, however,
all eighteen of us took the same chance, with exception of two who did not
contract yellow fever. Of these one was willing to take the alternative
test, the other let it go and called it a day when the infected bedding
and clothing test failed to give him yellow fever. I, also, consider Gen.
Kean the highest living authority on matters connected with the conquest of
yellow fever. He was Major Reed's intimate friend. He was a medico of
mature years. He was Chief Surgeon of the Department in which the tests
were carried out. His general knowledge of the experiments and of the
connection between Reed and Finlay give him a unique status among those
yet living and authorized to advance an opinion in the premises. In some
respects his knowledge of certain details and incidents connected with our
life at Camp Lazear cannot be as good as mine. I lived through them and
was one of the camp residents from November 20th to December 25th, 1900,
when I was taken down with yellow fever. My status at the Camp was also
unique. A personal letter of recommendation given to me by Major Reed,
written in his own hand, indicates my status. It reads as follows: WAR DEPARTMENT,
SURGEON GENERAL'S OFFICE,
Army Medical Museum and Library,
WASHINGTON. Feb 20 who
who This is to certify that the bearer, Mr. John J. Moran,
is a man of excellent habits and can be implicitly entrusted to
perform whatever duty may be assigned him. He was in my employ-
ment for several months as clerk and typewriter, and during this
time performed his duties in the most satisfactory and painstaking
manner. A man who volunteered, as he did, without hope of any
pecuniary reward, but solely in the interests of humanity and
medical science, to enter a building purposely infected with
yellow fever, and thereby contracted an attack of the disease,
should need no words of recommendation from any one. I feel confident, therefore, that he will give entire
satisfaction to any one who may give him employment. (Signed) WALTER REED
Surgeon, U. S. A.
(ORIGINAL of this letter is now in possession of the U. of Va.) [They later
lost it!] I had a preview of "Yellow Jack" on August 12th and was not a little
surprised at myself as "Sergeant O'Hara". I suppose I should have felt very
much flattered from the prominent role accorded me. In a way, I am and in
another sense, I am not. With a little more attention to details and person-
alities, the picture would have been entitled to a "monumental rating". How-
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Dr. Philip S. Hench.
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Oct. 30, 1938.
ever, I consider it better than no picture at all. It glorifies Reed and
it certainly gives Finlay a status which he never had before, although the
Cubans are wild about the part he is given in the play and the monocled
actor who plays the role. Personally, I criticize the producers in that
same respect and in giving Finlay a Scotch burr which he did not have. The
monocle and the burr were two luxuries in which Finlay did not indulge. We
have in Cuba a self-appointed Finlay champion, Dr. Francisco Dominguez Rol-
dan, at one time on the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Havana, and
later Cuban Minister to France. While there, he was elected a Member of the
French Academy of Medicine and succeeded in having the Academy lean towards
the theory that Finlay, and Finlay only, was entitled to all the credit for
the conquest of yellow fever. For the past several years, led by this old
gentleman, the Cuban medicos have followed his line of reasoning and, with
this leadership, have practically convinced even intelligent Cubans that
Reed is more or less of an usurper. We are all agreed, of course, that
Finlay was correct in his species of mosquito. Those of us who are impartial
also know that he never got anywhere with his theory. You will recall the
Agramonte article in the Scientific Monthly, written in December, 1915, the
same year Finlay died. Agramonte was a Cuban, not an American. Finlay, as
a matter of fact, was a Cuban only by accident. He was born here, the son
of a Scotch father and a French mother. However, the Cubans claim him as
their own. He graduated in Medicine at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelph-
ia and came back to Cuba to practice. He left Cuba as a boy and was educated
in England and the United States, with a comparatively short sojourn in his
mother's native country. Agramonte, in the picture, plays a rather sorry
part. He was an upstanding specimen of Cuban manhood, spoke English as well
as any of our university graduates. From the time he was four or five years
old, he was taken to New York and he did not return to Cuba until some three
years after graduating in Medicine at P. & S. (Columbia University). The bent-
over actor who represents him in the picture, and his decidedly Latin-American
accent, are entirely out of place. I have pointed out two of the capital
errors appearing in the picture "Yellow Jack", but there are many more I could
point out. May I suggest that a clearing up of the REED-FINLAY-CONQUEST-OF-
YELLOW - FEVER, or an effort to do so, on your part, is a task far more press-
ing than publishing the Kissinger-Moran stories or memoirs. The Cuban
Government, I understand, is preparing to publish in six languages the Finlay
story. That story will be a repetition, more or less, of what Dr. Francisco
Dominguez Roldan has proclaimed over the past fifteen years. It will be in
book form and for free distribution. It is certain to charge the American
Medical Profession and Public, either directly or indirectly, with "stealing"
for REED what belongs to Finlay by right. I am sure you would find an able
and willing col [l] aborator, in any such project, in General Kean. The General
is now pretty well along in years, mentally as sound as he ever was, but
suffering from failing sight. I am sending you a copy of a letter I received
from him dated April 12, 1938, which is self-explanatory. Needless to state
that any assistance I could render in such a laudable effort would be yours
for the asking. I do not suppose I could be of very much assistance, since
the subject is more or less taboo to non-scientists. Have mailed you the
a new set of pictures. While the others were marked "Registered", the office
boy who mailed them did so without registration. Evidently they are lost for-
ever. Inquiry at the Post Office here resulted NIL. Will close for the
present and hope you will be able to survive the ordeal of reading this. Sincerely,
John J. Moran
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