Carroll, James

Carroll, James, 1854–1907, American bacteriologist and army surgeon, b. Woolwich, England, M.D. Univ. of Maryland, 1891. He went to Canada at 15 and later joined the U.S. army. A member of the Yellow Fever Commission under Walter Reed, he voluntarily submitted to the bite of an infected mosquito, contracted yellow fever, and recovered. This proved the mosquito to be the carrier of the disease. Carroll also proved that the infectious agent is a filterable virus.

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Carroll, James (1854–1907) bacteriologist; born in Woolwich, England. Having first emigrated to Canada, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1874. After nine years in the infantry and 15 years as a hospital steward (1883–98), he studied medicine and bacteriology; in 1895 he became an assistant to Walter Reed at the Army Medical School. In 1900, he was appointed to the Yellow Fever Commission to study the disease in Cuba. To test the theory of mosquito transmission, he let himself be bitten and contracted the disease; although he recovered, complications of yellow fever would cause his early death. He succeeded Walter Reed as a professor at the Army Medical School and at Columbian University (Washington, D.C.).