Walter Reed at Camp Lazear: A Paradigm for Contemporary Clinical Research.

Throughout the time of the early settlement and development of North America, there were frequent epidemics of Yellow Fever. It is thought that ships transporting captured Africans likely conveyed both major vectors, the Aedes aegypti mosquito and the RNA Yellow Fever virus from Africa to North America. Infected ships landing in port cities resulted in epidemics that proved impossible to control with conventional interventions. Walter Reed and the U.S. Army Commission solved the mystery of the mode of Yellow Fever transmission. Reed and his co-workers not only proved the mosquito the vector of transmission but did so by constructing focused research questions leading to cleverly devised experiments that resulted in definitive answers. The results of their research not only proved that the mosquito transmitted the disease but disproved the other proposed modes of transmission. In nearly all respects, Reed's experiments are an excellent paradigm for addressing clinical research questions today.