Lazear was a physician at the
Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore starting in 1895, where he studied
malaria and
yellow fever. In 1900 he reported for duty as the assistant surgeon at Columbia Barracks (Quemados, Cuba) for the
United States Army. After a few months in Quemados, Lazear, together with
Walter Reed,
James Carroll and
Aristides Agramonte, participated in a commission studying the transmission of
yellow fever, the Yellow Fever Board. During his research at Camp Columbia, he confirmed the 1881
hypothesis of
Carlos Finlay that
mosquitoes transmitted this disease. Lazear was the only member of the commission who had experience working with mosquitoes, and he used mosquito larvae from Finlay's laboratory. He wrote to his wife in a letter dated September 8, 1900, "I rather think I am on the track of the real germ." Lazear deliberately allowed an infected mosquito to bite him in order to study the disease. He contracted the disease and died at age 34, seventeen days after writing his hopeful letter. The fact that this was a deliberate act was covered up at the time—for reasons unknown, but possibly connected with family insurance policies—and the story put about that Lazear had mistaken the mosquito for an uninfected one of a different species. The truth was discovered in 1947 by
Philip S. Hench from Lazear's own notebook. A dormitory at Johns Hopkins University was named after him in honor of his sacrifice, as was a former chemistry building at Washington & Jefferson College, Lazear's alma mater. There is a memorial in the "Sacrifice" stained glass window at the altar of the War Memorial Chapel at the Washington National Cathedral dedicated to Jesse Lazear showing him, an injection needle and a mosquito. ==See also==