Walter Reed

Originally Aired: June 25, 1940 Cavalcade of America #193, "Walter Reed," brings to life the desperate fight against yellow fever in 1900 Havana, where the mysterious disease has made its permanent and deadly home. Major Walter Reed arrives from the United States to lead a commission investigating the epidemic that is ravaging American troops and civilians alike. He quickly finds himself at odds with Dr. Gorgas, who insists on conventional sanitation methods and dismisses the radical mosquito theory as impractical speculation. Reed's investigation leads him to the elderly Dr. Finlay, a marginalized researcher who has spent years studying the Stegomaya mosquito. Too old and discouraged to continue his work, Finlay entrusts Reed with his most precious legacy: a collection of mosquito eggs and the conviction that these insects are the true carriers of yellow fever. As patients continue to die in the military hospital and soldiers fall ill one after another, Reed faces a critical decision about whether to pursue this unconventional theory through dangerous human experimentation, knowing that time is running out and lives hang in the balance.