oney, and entered into the momentous
enterprise with helpful sympathy and untiring zeal.

[Illustration: CARLOS J. FINLAY

Born at Camaguey on December 3, 1833, of English parents, and dying on
August 20, 1915, Dr. Carlos J. Finlay left a name which greatly adorns
the science of Cuba and which occupied a conspicuous place on the roster
of the benefactors of humanity. He was educated in France and at the
Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, and rose to eminence in his
profession. He first of all men propounded the theory that _Stegomiya
fasciata_ mosquito was the active and sole agent in the communication of
yellow fever, and personally, under the Governorship of Leonard Wood,
demonstrated the correctness of that theory and thus freed Cuba from its
most dreaded pestilence and blazed the way for a like achievement in all
other lands. For this epochal service to the world many foreign
governments bestowed distinctions and decorations upon him. Though
technically retaining the British citizenship with which his father
endowed him, he devoted his life to Cuba and filled with high efficiency
the place of chief of the Bureau of Sanitation.]

The scene of the drama--for it was one of the most dramatic and heroic
performances in human history--was Camp Lazear, fittingly named for the
brave man who was a martyr to the cause of health, a few miles from
Quemados, in the outskirts of Havana. Before the work at the camp was
begun, however, two experiments were made by members of the commission,
who thus demonstrated their personal readiness to incur any peril which
might confront the volunteers for whom they were calling. Dr. Carroll
was first. He deliberately caused himself to be bitten by a mosquito
which twelve days before had gorged itself with the blood of a
yellow fever patient. Note that he did this with the expectation, indeed
with the hope, that he would thus be infected with one of the deadliest
of diseases. He sought to prove not that there was no danger in a
mosquito bite, but on the contrary that there was the greatest possible
danger. And his anticipations were fully realized. In due time after the
bite he was stricken with yellow fever in a particularly severe form;
from which, however, he happily recovered.

Dr. Lazear came next. At about the same time with Carroll he made a
similar experiment upon himself. Apparently the insect by which he
caused himself to be bitten had not itself been infected. At any rate