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Name:

Date:

Directions: Read the following biography about Walter Reed, a famous

doctor that also worked for the United States army. Then answer thequestions below.

Walter Reed, a doctor from the United States got his medical degree when he was

18 years old. He 7married Emilie Lawrence and they had two children, a son and a

daughter. They also adopted a Native American girl.

Walter was a very young doctor. He joined the Army to have more opportunity

and became a captain. For 16 years he lived far away from other doctors in theArmy. Where he worked he looked after several hundred Native Americans. He

wanted to be able to study and learn more about medicine, so he asked for a four

month break. He learned so well he was admitted to study for seven months at thefamous Johns Hopkins Hospital.

When he returned, he did experiments at the Army outpost. He and some other

doctors studied typhoid fever, a dangerous infection. The disease was spreading inthe army camps. Many spread the disease without knowing they had it. They were

near the other soldiers carrying the disease and then those soldiers would become

sick and die. The camp was not clean. People did not wash their hands before

eating and then would become sick. Flies also transferred the disease from human

waste to food.

Yellow feverwas a feared disease. 90,000 people in the United States were dead

already from the disease at the time, as well as thousands of American soldiers in

Cuba. Reed observed that people who cared for the patients with yellow fever

didn't usually get the disease. He thought that people didn't catch it from eachother.

Reed wanted to find the answer. He wondered if maybe mosquitoes might be

spreading it. Some of the doctors and soldiers volunteered to take part in the

experiment.

The mosquitoes were put in test tubes. First they bit the arms of men who already

had yellow fever. Then they bit the arms of people who didn't have the disease.After many tests, they decided the mosquito did carry the disease from one person

to another.

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The next step was to get rid of the mosquitoes. They sprayed the areas of water

where the mosquitoes were hatching, with chemicals. This stopped the spread of

the disease.

Reed's success with stopping the spread of yellow fever made it possible for the

building of the Panama Canal where previously the mosquitoes had caused somuch death due to the disease.

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. is named in honor of

him.

Questions

1. How old was Reed when he decided to be a doctor?

2. Why is Walter Reed famous?

3. How did Reed know that mosquitoes made people sick?

4. Why did yellow fever spread when people lived very close together?

5. How did they stop the spread of the disease?

6. People got yellow fever because of the experiment Reed carried out.

Knowing the situation at the time, do you think this was a moral

experiment?