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Finlay and Reed -
8/9/01-
And so proceed ad -------------------- -------------------- Sept 8 1901 TOPICS OF THE TIMES. ------ ----Dr. CHARLES FINLAY of Havana evi-
dently feels that he is not getting quite as
much credit as he deserves for having defi-
nitely and publicly declared many years
ago that the relation between yellow fever
and mosquitos was about what it has re-
cently been proved to be by the brilliantly
successful experiments of the Government
board. In a letter to The Medical Record
he not only denies that such facts as he
was able unaided to learn made against
the acceptance of his theory, as one mem-
ber of the board has stated, but he says,
in effect, that if the official investigators
had availed themselves of the results of
his researches and deductions they would
have avoided the fatalities which followed
some of their recent inoculations. It has
long been Dr. FINLAY'S opinion that the
severity of the infection conveyed by the
mosquito's bite was proportioned to the
length of time during which the insect
had harbored the germs of the disease, and
also that bites comparatively safe in Win-
ter were positively dangerous in Summer.
"Two unexpectedly severe cases," writes
Dr. FINLAY, in conclusion, "which ended
fatally with black vomit, have thus oc-
curred at the experimental station, and
furnish a warning not to place too much
reliance upon previous results obtained in
a different season, and evidently justify
my former reluctance to experiment, on
my sole responsibility, with mosquitos
whose contamination had been allowed to
reach its fullest development. There are
yet many important points to be accurate-
ly determined before any one of us can
consider himself in a position to discredit
the other's work." Here, evidently, is ma-
terial for a controversy of no small bitter-
ness, for in effect Dr. FINLAY charges that
fatal terminations were to be apprehended,
if not to be expected, in circumstances like
those of the recent inoculations, and that
places a large responsibility on the doctors
who conducted the experiments. FROM GEN. J. R. KEAN |
