Fever Fighters: The West Africa Yellow Fever Commission

Fever Fighters: The Staff of the West Africa Yellow Fever Commission[1]


Houses of Dr. Mahaffey and Dr. Beeuwkes, Lagos, Nigeria, January 20, 1933. Courtesy of NLM Profiles in Science.[2]	The West Africa Yellow Fever Commission operated from 1925 to 1934 and generally had eight members at a time with twenty-four members total over the nine-year period.[3]

Dr. Henry Beeuwkes (1881-1956), Director, The John Hopkins School of Medicine, 1906
Dr. Henry Hanson (1877-1954), Field Investigation – Inspector – Nigeria
Dr. A.F. Mahaffy (1891-1962), Field Investigation – Inspector – Lagos
Dr. A.M. Walcott (1884-1962), Field Investigation – Inspector – Gold Coast – Carter’s 1921 letter recommends Walcott[4]
Dr. Israel J. Kligler (1888-1944), Bacteriologist, Director of the Hygiene and Bacteriology Department at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School (Columbia University graduate)
Dr. Oskar Klotz (1878-1936), Special Pathologist, Professor of Pathology and Bacteriology at the University of Toronto – Diary
Dr. H.R. Muller, Pathologist and Bacteriologist
Mr. Lawrence H. Dunn, Entomologist
Mr. F.A. Bryant, Office Manager
Mr. Frank P. Hogan, Secretary
Mr. Wm. Glassounoff, Laboratory Technician
Dr. Adrian Stokes (1887-1927), Pathologist, Guy’s Hospital, London, died of yellow fever
Dr. Wilbur A. Sawyer (1879-1951), Interim Director for six months while Beeuwkes was on leave
Dr. Johannes H. Bauer (1890-1961), Pathologist
Dr. N. Paul Hudson, Pathologist and Bacteriologist
Bryan R. Dyer, Survey assistant to Dr. Hanson
Dr. Maurice Wakeman, Biochemistry and Internal Medicine
Dr. C. Morrell, Biochemistry and Internal Medicine
Mr. Philip, Entomology
Dr. Hideyo Noguchi (1876-1928), Bacteriologist – Gold Coast, died of yellow fever
Mr. Batchelder, Technician – Gold Coast
Dr. Kumm, Clinician
Dr. Theodore B. Hayne (1898-1930), Clinician, died of yellow fever
Mr. Davis, Technician in Immunology
Mr. C. Michaeloff, Assistant Secretary
Dr. Ramsay, Statistician
Dr. E.J. Scannell, Clinician

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[1] H.J. Barrie, “Diary Notes on a Trip to West Africa in Relation to a Yellow Fever Expedition under the Auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation, 1926 by Oskar Klotz,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History = Bulletin canadien d’histoire de la medicine 14, no.1(1997): 140, 153.
[2] “Houses of Dr. Mahaffey and Dr. Beeuwkes, Lagos, Nigeria, January 20, 1933,” National Library of Medicine, Profiles in Science: Wilbur A. Sawyer Papers, http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/ResourceMetadata/LWBBGD (accessed July 25, 2012).
[3] Greer Williams, The Plague Killers (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969), 226-227.
[4] Letter from Henry Rose Carter to Wickliffe Rose, May 13, 1921, Hench-Reed Collection, Historical Collections, CMHSL, University of Virginia, http://search.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/uva-lib:2222847 (accessed May 23, 2017).