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Letter from Jefferson Randolph Kean to George Miller Sternberg, September 25, 1900

 
CHIEF SURGEON'S OFFICE
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT WESTERN CUBA
QUEMADOS, CUBA

Sept. 25th
Gen. Geo M. Sternberg
Surgeon General U.S.A.
My dear General

    I have just cabled you
the news of the death of Dr.
Jesse W. Lazear A.A.Surg. U.S.A.
from yellow fever.

    Dr. Lazear has for the past
four months exposed himself
with absolute fearlessness in
the discharge of his duty.
He has examined the blood
of every case of yellow fever
which has occurred at
Columbia Bks and in
Marianao during that time

 
-2-
and has immensely aided
in the making of prompt
diagnoses, which has been
so important an element in
his preventing the spread of
the disease and in the
success of the treatment of his
cases. In the investigations of
the tropical board he has
shown the same courage &
the earnestness & ability which
characterized all his work.
He gave up his life in the
demonstration of the inocula-
bility of the disease through
the agency of the mosquito.

 

    -3-
He leaves, dying at the age
of thirty-four; a wife and
two children - the youngest
of whom he never saw, as
his son was born in the U.
S. while he was in Cuba
this summer.

    I write this General to sug-
gest that you give to the
medical journals, and, if
if you see fit, to the secular
papers a statement of his
services and of the manner
of his death, which will
cause some little public
recognition of the noble sacri-
fice which he has made
to science. He has shown
courage greater than that
required to head an assault

 
and I think that it is
only just to him and to
the profession and the service,
that it should be made
known, and that his memory
should get the honor & credit
that it deserves.

With much respect I remain
your obedient servant

J.R. Kean