Great-grand daughter of Museum’s sixth curator visits archives    Mike Rhode, the museum’s archivist, shows Jane Carroll Bauer and her husband documents relating to her great-grandfather The great-granddaughter of the National Museum of Health and Medicine’s sixth curator, Dr. James Carroll, visited the museum to tour the Otis Historical Archives and to view records about her great-grandfather. Known as the Army Medical Museum during his tenure from 1902 to 1907, Dr. Carroll had a background in bacteriology and pathology, gained while doing post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He was assigned to the Army Medical Museum to work with Maj. Walter Reed on bacteriology research. Jane Carroll Bauer reviews corresponence between her great-grandfather and her great-grandmother Jane Carroll Bauer and her husband have been traveling the country, visiting institutions and universities in search of materials about her great-grandfather. In the archives, Bauer was able to read correspondence between her great-grandfather and great- grandmother and look over a biographical file on Carroll, describing what he had accomplished before and during his tenure at the museum. “This is great stuff- we haven’t seen any of this information so far, so this is brand new,” Bauer said of the documents. The Bauers have been researching Carroll for the past 15 years and are planning to write a book about his life within the next few years. Of the travel, research and education, Jane Bauer says, “the best part is that we can do it together.” When the bacillus icteroides emerged in 1899, Carroll and Reed were appointed to investigate the microbe that became known as Yellow Fever. They estimated that there were 300,000 cases in the United States between 1793 and 1900, which cost the nation almost $500 million, with a mortality rate usually at 40 percent but sometimes as high as 85 percent. Reed and Carroll were sent to Cuba to investigate the disease where they uncovered a major problem. The disease itself seemed random, attacking some members of a household but not others. The decision was made not to study the agent, but the means by which it was contracted. For this purpose Reed organized the Yellow Fever Board in the following manner: Reed himself was in charge of the entire project; Carroll was in charge of bacteriology; Dr. Jesse W. Lazear was in charge of the experimental mosquitoes; and Dr. Aristedes Agramonte was in charge of pathology. After extensive research, which included purposefully infecting soldiers with the disease and building specially constructed barracks that were used to compare transmissions of the disease, the board was able to prove that the specific agent of yellow fever is in the blood and that passage through the body of a mosquito is not necessary to its development. The team returned from Cuba to widespread admiration and acclaim. A few months later, Carroll identified the final piece to the puzzle by proving that the specific agent of yellow fever was sub-microscopic and too small to be caught in the pores of the diatomaceous filter that retained bacteria. This led to the development of an inoculation for the disease, which is still in use in the jungles of Central and South America today. Following their return from Cuba, members of the Yellow Fever Commission were in demand as speakers. Reed and Carroll appeared before numerous medical societies and organizations to present and discuss their remarkable discoveries. Carroll took the position of curator at the Army Medical School, after Reed died, in 1902. He was 46 years old at the time and knew that mortality of yellow fever rapidly increased with age. Carroll was finally promoted by special act of Congress from first lieutenant to major on March 9, 1907. He died at the age of 54, in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 16, 1907, from complications of valvular heart disease brought on by his experimental case of yellow fever. Carroll was buried in Arlington National Cemetery and a bronze plaque in his memory was placed at the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore. In 1929 Congress passed public law #898, “That in special recognition of the high public service rendered and disabilities contracted in the interest of humanity and science as voluntary subjects for the experimentations during the yellow-fever investigations in Cuba, the Secretary of War… is directed to publish annually in the Army Register a roll of honor on which shall be carried the following names: Walter Reed, James Carroll, Jesse W. Lazear, Aristides Agramonte…” The museum has on display artifacts relating to Reed and Carroll and their work on the Yellow Fever epidemic. A microscope used by Carroll to diagnose patients with typhoid is on display, along with the medallion that was awarded to the members of the Yellow Fever Commission by Congress in 1929. Additionally, there is a bronze bust of Reed and signed contracts by men who volunteered to take part in the study.