Agramonte v. Noguchi

Dr. Hideyo Noguchi, native of Japan, researcher in yellow fever for the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, died in West Africa, of yellow fever (TIME, May 21 et seq.). People called him a martyr to science. He left an estate of only $12,000. Last week, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research announced that it would award a suitable pension to the widow of Martyr Noguchi. Another distinguished yellow fever worker is Dr. Aristides Agramonte, native of Havana, Cuba. He is the sole surviving member of the heroic Army Commission of the U. S., which in 1900 went into Cuba determined to clear up the mystery of yellow fever. They submitted their bodies to the bite of infected mosquitoes and established beyond dispute that yellow fever is transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes of the species Stegomyia fasciata. But the commission was unable to identify the germ. Since then there have been many attempts, many false alarms. Researcher Noguchi's Leptospira icteroides has received scientific support; has come closest to being accepted as the organism responsible for yellow fever. Survivor Agramonte was never satisfied with its credentials. Both before and after Noguchi's death by yellow fever he has pointed out the similarity between Noguchi's leptospira and the leptospira which causes Leptospiral Jaundice (Weil's Disease); has claimed they are one and the same organism. Other wary workers have also suspected this to be the case. To TIME, Dr. Agramonte wrote:

"Dr. Noguchi was one of the greatest bacteriologists of modern times; since his connection with the Rockefeller Foundation during the last quarter of the century, he made remarkable and most valuable contributions to the science of medicine in his chosen field; whatever problem he investigated, he was sure to make clear and his death has been a great loss to the world of science, but his work in yellow fever, from 1919 to the day of his decease, was practically valueless (except for methods of investigation of his own devising), and possibly harmful. "I say it was valueless, because during eight years he persisted in working with an organism (Leptospira icteroides), which he thought he had discovered, as the specific germ of yellow fever, that turned out to be the well-known cause of another disease (Weil's Disease), and not a Tropical disease at that: his work was harmful, because he prepared a so-called protective vaccine and a curative serum from his own leptospira, which he used many times, conveying thereby a false sense of security in some cases (the vaccinated ones), and no benefit in the others (where the serum was applied), inasmuch as it has been demonstrated that he did not have the specific germ of the disease (from which useful vaccine and sera can only be prepared), but another organism, one entirely foreign to yellow fever. This would appear laughable were it not for the tragedy that followed in its wake, since the vaccine or the serum thus prepared was not (could not be) effective in saving life; so the lives lost of Drs. Cross (Mexico); Stokes, Young and Noguchi (West Africa) and there is no record of many instances of vaccinations in Peru, Mexico or Brazil where they must have been equally unavailing. . . ." Dr. Agramonte, at a meeting of tropical specialists in 1924 at Kingston, Jamaica, presented his arguments in the presence of Dr.. Noguchi. Subsequently the arguments were substantiated by Drs. Sellard and Theiler who proved that Noguchi's leptospira gave the same reactions as the germ of Weil's Disease. Later, Drs. Gay and Sellard conducted another experiment. Mosquitoes, well infected with Noguchi's leptospira, when applied to three nonimmune individuals, failed to produce the least disturbance, showing that mosquitoes cannot transmit the leptospirae, though this is the only way in which yellow fever is transmitted in nature.

Dr. Agramonte's letter concluded: "In July, 1927, in West Africa, infection of a rhesus monkey was obtained with the blood of a native suffering from yellow fever, and soon after, other monkeys were infected with blood and by the bites of infected mosquitoes, from monkey to monkey and from man to monkey. Inasmuch as Dr. Noguchi did not go to West Africa until later (he was in New York during August), he could not have furnished the blood for the monkey inoculation, as reported; in fact, he had nothing to do with them, and you may add to this that his leptospira has never been found in West Africa by the Rockefeller investigators. It is also reported that Dr. Noguchi suffered an attack of yellow fever in December, 1927, but if such had been the case, he could not have suffered another, to cause his death, in May, 1928. More likely his attack of December was not yellow fever. It is not known whether he used his own-so-called vaccine upon himself; if he did, small wonder that he was not protected."