 The Schenle Laboratories, producer of Penicillin-Schenle and Schenle Pharmaceuticals, presents Yonkour Theatre. Yonkour Theatre play tonight, Yellowjack. Our star is Ronald Colman. Tonight, Schenle Laboratories presents another in a new series of great dramatic programs. Some of our stories are fact. The struggles and accomplishments of great men of medicine. Others are fiction. Stories of devotion to an ideal. Individual heroism or great courage. By these programs, Schenle Laboratories would remind you that medical science and progress is not cold in personal research or pages of statistics, but a worn human story, told in living terms. Whether it's the life of one of medicine's immortals or the simple everyday record of service rendered by your family physician. Colman brings you the story of Yellowjack. Cuba, late July 1900. The land was rich and mellow. It shimmered radiantly in the hot sunlight. The land was a verdant Eden, gaudy with color, with everything right to the tongue and the touch. The land was a thing of gentle hills, kneeling around quiet valleys and dense jungles. It was cliffs and bluffs that bent down to see who was coming in the harbors. The land was beaches and banks. And the blue water curled its white toes on the beaches, coveting the land. Water, the transparent aqua home of the eel, the shark, the manatee. Cuba, late July. Paradise and paradox, where the monkey was king of the jungle and the tortoise subjects. Where beauty walked in sultry splendor, dripping venom and honing. Cuba, where man was an inconsequential thing measured against a mosquito. Those American doctors and scientists didn't know they were pitting themselves against the mosquito at first, although they had a name for their enemy and the name was Yellowjack. Heroes are men from humble towns with humble names like O'Hara, Maclellan, Brinkerhoff, Finley. There's usually nothing to distinguish them. Nothing but that inner fire that manifests itself in the quickness of their hands and the brightness of their eyes. Their names are names like Lazier and Carol and Aggrimante and Reed. And their names are Legion. Major Reed, there is a message here from General Woods Headquarters. What is it, Aggrimante? The army death list brought up to date, sir. Thank you, Aggrimante. I can't stand much more of this. I look out there over the sea and I watch our transport steaming home and I don't even dare think what they may be carrying home. We've taken Cubon with his awful things smoldering and waiting for fresh American fuel, waiting for its chance to jump over home to Philadelphia and New Orleans. It is not an agreeable condition from my point of view, either, doctor. I am Cuban-born. I didn't mean to offend you, Aggrimante, but you and Carol and Lazier and I, we were sent down to stop this horror, to isolate a microbe and find a cure and we failed. Failed miserably. It isn't easy to admit that. I know, I know, doctor. But it is not from lack of trying. Yeah, if we could only think of some fresh angle. Oh, by the way, I ran into one puzzler at Pina. I've had enough puzzlers I can't solve. I guess enough puzzlers. But this is a funny case. This one is worth listening to. The case of a soldier. 6th, 12th, July, dead, 18th, July. Nothing so unusual about that. Oh, but there is. That soldier had not been exposed. He had not been near the disease for over a month before he took sick. What was that? There it is. There's the first clue. A soldier, sick July the 12th, dead on the 18th. A soldier who had been in the guardhouse a month before he took sick and who lay in that guardhouse for three days with eight other prisoners and not one of them caught it. Not even the one who slept in his blankets after he died. There's something to think about. There's a thought worth some contemplation. How about contaminated food or water agrimati? They all not fed eight and drank the same. Well, the other eight may have been immune. Records do not show it. One came from Iowa, one from Maine, two from Wisconsin. Hmm. They may have been extra susceptible. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe not. Think hard, Major E. Think hard. What was it crawled or jumped or flew through that guardhouse window? Bit that one prisoner and went back where it came from. How does yellow fever spread, Major E? How does it go from man to man and village to village and even across the sea? Think. Remember Smith's Texas fever tick? Remember Bruce and the Zetsy fly in Africa? Remember that Russ and grassy have just nailed malaria to a mosquito? Mosquitoes. Think hard, Major E. History is holding her breath while you ponder. The Mosquito Agrimati. Wasn't there a Dr. Finley who had a theory about the Mosquito and Yellowjack? Yes, but it was never credited and he's never able to prove his theories. Is he still here? Yes. Call Dr. Carroll and Dr. Lazare and let us call on Dr. Finley. How simple a stage is sometimes set for great moments. A Cuban afternoon, heart and breathless and sleepy. No drama here and no sound of drums or trumpets. No oratory. Only four young doctors walking along a dusty street but walking the threshold of discovery. I have the honor, Major E, to present my colleague Dr. Finley for these many years, a distinguished leader of our profession here in Havana. Dr. Finley, this is Dr. Lazare. How do you do, sir? Dr. Carroll. How do you do? Dr. Finley, we've come to ask of you your knowledge of your yellow fever mosquito. And a specimen of the mosquito herself. As many specimens as you can spare. You are astound, my gentlemen. For 19 years, science has laughed at me at the crack-doll Finley and his mosquitoes. I have no impulse to share my secret. No one's laughing now, Dr. Finley. We want to work with you. You believe in my discovery, Dr. Reed? Yes, I do believe in it. Don't you see, Dr. Finley? We're what you've been waiting for. We're going to save your discovery and pull the whole fraternity of science into line. All we need is one demonstration and we can prove the whole theory. Truth. My, there's the run. Some truths have to bide their time and wait for the world to catch up with them. This needs courage and ruthlessness. You can't test Finley's mosquitoes without risking life. You cannot ask me to believe that you'll be allowed to experiment on your soldiers. No, we'll let the soldiers wait. We'll start this off with ourselves. You gentlemen? The four of us. No, only three. Hagrimonty's had Yellowjack. No, you men of science, your lives are valuable. Is any man's life worth more than the cause he risks it on? Major Reed, all of you are brave men. How may I serve you? Give us the mosquito eggs, doctor. When I give them into your hands, I give you 19 years of my life, but I do it gladly. There it is. There in a bowl before you. You've only to raise the water in that dish and those eggs will hatch the criminal. Beware of her. She isn't a wild marsh mosquito. She's your domestic pet. She shares your home with you. Takes her siesta under your eaves. Raises her family in your patio fountain and rewards your hospitality with death. Gentlemen, you hold the key to yellow fever in your hands. I pray for your sake and all humanity that you may turn the lock I fail to turn. Discussion, speculation, experimentation. The tireless, never-ending pattern of men of science probing the mysteries, searching for ultimate benefits for humanity, hoping through medicine to discover cures for all ills since the dawn of time. But even though centuries old, the practice of medicine is only within a comparatively recent length of time made its greatest stride in prolonging the life of man. It may well be that this fact is due to today's emphasis upon research, research which has yielded such life-saving drugs as penicillin and the newer streptomycin. Among the firms whose research helped increase production of penicillin and allied products is Shanley Laboratories. In recent months, Shanley Laboratories is placed at the disposal of your physician, such specialized products as penicillin tablets and trochets for administration of penicillin by mouth, penicillin ointment for local application, and ophthalmic ointment for treating certain infections of the eye. Even now, as you hear this program, the research scientists of Shanley Laboratories are working toward the end that your physician may have a never-increasing number of healing, life-giving drugs of his command. In striving to further broaden the scope of our production of pharmaceuticals, Shanley Laboratories is guided by the desire to help place in every doctor's hands the greatest amount of aid in fighting disease that medical research can develop. Now, Ronald Coleman continues the story of Yellowjack. Mosquitoes under the searching white light of science. Mosquitoes under microscopes. Discussion, speculation, experimentation. Look, boys. My orders are to bring mosquitoes in here to the hospital ward to suck a few yellow fever germs out of your blood. Now, you've got plenty to spare, so there's nothing for you to get excited about. One little mosquito bite won't make you feel any worse than you do already. One mosquito bite in the interest of science. Let the mosquito dip his quill in the poison and proceed on his deadly way. All right, Lazare, roll up your sleeve. His little baby in this jar, straight from the Yellowjack ward. Go ahead. Let's get it over with. There it is. That's simply. Death is carried from insect to man. Or is it? Any temperature, Lazare? Nope. Eddie? No, it aren't discouraging, isn't it? Yeah. How long since the last time I was bitten? Six days. How discouraging when facts can't keep up with hunches. Three mosquito bites for Dr. Lazare and no results. The key and the lock are in their hands, but the lock is hard to turn. Nature discloses her secrets reluctantly. Something has been overlooked here. I can tell you one thing we've forgotten. Oh, what's that? It's the same thing Ross was stuck on with malaria. You can fill those mosquitoes full of malaria blood and they can't hurt a baby for two weeks afterwards. They've got to have a good two weeks to ripen. We haven't given our skaters any time. Hmm. Hey, Grimondie, how long has your oldest mosquito had to digest her meal of Yellow Fever blood? 12 days. All right, we'll wait two more and try them on Lazare. That doesn't take well still on Dr. Carroll. Waiting is hard with the tropic sun beating down and men dying in the Yellow Fever wards. Waiting is a twisting impatience that rides in their stomachs while the mosquito drones in the test tube and Dr. Lazare remains well. Doubts begin to fester and spread. Perhaps the mosquito is not the villain. Perhaps once more they are on the wrong track. Their minds are small rooms and they pace them hour after hour, day after day. While the jungle leaves whisper and chuckle in the afternoon breezes, while the monkey chatters and the manatee dozes and the vines of Cuba twine about the dead. All right, let's get this over with. What's this mosquito all by yourself, Grimondie? That is the one we fed on that boy two weeks ago. We had just been brought into the ward. That case hadn't even begun to develop, Carroll. That's trier. I took mine from fatal cases. Why can't you? A mosquito is a mosquito. And if you don't mind, I'll pick my own. Come on, black beauty. Kiss me. Another period of waiting and watching, while anxiety and worry pinches at their nerves and the bitter tang of failure tastes on their lips. They have been willing to risk death for the victory over Yellowjack, but now they feel that instead of death they are fencing with ridicule. Carroll in particular is beginning to crack under the strain and even Reed is showing the danger signals of mental anguish and strain. I have no patience with you, Carroll. This morning you performed an autopsy on a man just dead of yellow fever. When you're testing one source of infection, you deliberately expose yourself to another. If you would have become infected, how would you know which source of infection to hold responsible? How can you expect me to check my real work to test an idea that's already exploded? You aren't even giving it a chance. You haven't taken your temperature at all these last four days. Why should I? This darn thing has me crazy as it is. That's even got me all up my feet. I woke up this morning feeling, feeling how, Carroll? I don't like the dickens. My head's felt like a dog's breakfast all morning. Hey, date? Dizziness? Are you sure it's the effect of nerves, Carroll? Remember a lady you called Black Beauty? A lady you dared to laugh at? Report to the hospital immediately, Carroll. Why? There's nothing wrong with me. All I need is a little quinine and a headache pot. Take him over, Lizzie. Yes, of course. Come on, Carroll. Oh, a lot of dang nonsense. I'm frightened, Agri-Moddy. For the first time, I'm frightened. What of that Carroll's got yellowjack? Or that he hasn't? Both. I examined Carroll very thoroughly. Whatever doubts you and me have had yesterday, there can be no question now. First, I was sorry for him. Then I remembered to thank God. I'm sorry, but Carroll's case is not conclusive evidence. No. Unfortunately, not conclusive. Why did one mosquito succeed with Carroll when 50 failed with Lazier? How can anyone be sure that it was the mosquito that infected him? An insect infected from a case only in the second day of disease. Dr. Reed, suppose this microbe is only in the blood the first few days. Before you really know what's wrong with you. You mean it might change, die after the first few days? I don't know. But if there is anything in the idea, we've been wasting our time feeding our skaters on advanced cases. There wouldn't have been any microbes left in them. And that would explain why I could... I wonder if that could be it. Ah, it's too easy. Things can't be that simple. Oh yes, things can be that simple. The truth is always simple. When you're finally able to discern what is the truth. If this is the trick, I never ran any risk at all. And I may be as susceptible as any man. I could be the case to confirm Carroll. Now, you'd have to be isolated for two weeks first. In two weeks, Dr. Carroll will be well or dead. We can't leave him lying there when he's done this. We can't let him die without knowing what he's done. Dear God, give us a chance with this. Dear God, just a chance. Send them one pure, unsuspecting human guinea pig. One guinea pig to prove that Yellowjack comes from the mosquito. One guinea pig. One guinea pig. One guinea pig. One guinea pig. Azale, what is it? What's wrong? It's no use. I can't go on. I'm sick, Reed. Oh, I don't wonder. You've been at Carroll's bedside night and day. Carroll got Yellowjack from our mosquitoes. I haven't been bitten myself for weeks. But I've got it, too. I've got it, too. You can take all those notes and the ports and all those mosquitoes and burn them. There's nothing in them because I've gone and got Yellowjack without our mosquito. Men can't go against death and not risk death themselves. Pasteur sent Twilier to Alexandria for the cholera. Twilier didn't come back. Lazier won't last. Humanity asks great sacrifices of its scientists. Write down the name Jesse Lazier. Engrave it on stone. Honor it. He was a strong man, but not so strong as a mosquito. Do you want to give up, Dr. Reed? Do you want to go back? How about you, Carol? You're the one who's been ill? No. I want to go on for myself and for Lazier. Go back? No. The stuff of courage doesn't grow weaker. It grows stronger and brighter until it blinds with its light. And the flaming sword cuts through the veil of knowledge. Understand now, Sergeant. General Wood doesn't want any pressure brought. Just let it leak out. I don't know why any healthy kid should volunteer, but 300 is a lot of money to a soldier. The whispers dart across the night like frightened birds. $300 compensation for volunteers. They've got a nerve. Volunteers to catch Yellowjack and die of it. Not for me, not for five times $300. To advance science and benefit humanity. In soldiers' humanity. No pressure. Just let it leak out. There will be volunteers. There must be volunteers. Did you want something, Private O'Hara? I've come to volunteer, sir. The both of us, sir, for the experiment. You know the risk? Yes, sir. We know all right. You've heard what the compensation is? Yes, sir. We've heard. We're volunteering in the interest of science. And for the benefit of humanity. And the only condition on which we volunteer is that we receive no compensation, sir. Gentlemen, I... I thank you all. Did you hear that? They're off and no one can stop them now. They've got everything they need. Backing, money, isolation camps, and a couple of guys worth remembering. The conditions are absolutely ideal, Carol. Brinkerhof, no, Harold, be confined in this tent. There'll be no mosquitoes here that we don't bring with us in test tubes. This is going to be the dog-gondust experiment there's ever been. Two weeks for O'Hara and Brinkerhof to sit in that tent. Two weeks with only themselves for company and an occasional visit from the doctors. Two weeks of sleep and food and sterile baths before their strange wedding. Are you ready, Brinkerhof, no, Harold? Yes, sir. Will you give me the mosquitoes, Agamonny? There are no mistakes this time. No chance of error. Reid's going to show them this time that you can't catch Yellowjack in any way but from the mosquito. He's out to prove that Lazier, too, died because of the mosquito. And so he gets two more volunteers and another tent that he calls the Dirty House. Is the tent ready? It's ready, all right. And the Dirty House is a good name for it. It's packed full of every stinking by-product of this disease. Two soldiers will sleep in there for three weeks. Sleep in the unerred, undisinfected and unwashed bedding that men have died in. Everything that scientists have ever thought transmitted the diseases in there. Except the mosquito. I'm hard, O'Hara. Hard. It's a cold night with a wintry dampness in it. The way you could see your breath if you trouble to blow it. Hey, you guys open the Dirty House. How do you feel? Great. Oh, are you in with a little fresh air? Sure hope you guys get Yellowjack. Oh, you do, do you? Sure do. Because if you don't, we will. And we don't want to deprive you of the pleasure. These darn mosquito bites itch. Oh, quit beefing, Brinkerheart. Now what are you doing with that tent flap? Closing it. I'm cold. Two minutes ago the fever was burning you up. I gotta chill now. My ears is roaring. My teeth is chattering. My head... I feel lousy and I... Hey, John, what's that line you're always saying? Cowards die? Cowards die many times before their death. The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems most strange to me that men should fear. Seeing the death the necessary end will come when it will come. Will come when it will come. Ah, who's afraid? John, could I ask you to go down to the ambulance and tell them to come for me? Brinkerheart, you haven't gone and gotten Yellowjack without me, have you? Why you? Could I ask you, oh, Hera? Of course. Ambulance! Ambulance! Ambulance! Will they never finish their examination, Karim? You're taking this harder than Reed is. I feel for Reed. This is Reed's moment. Everything hangs on where the Brinkerhoff has Yellowjack and whether Major Gorgas is convinced that he got it from our mosquito. The doctors bend over the hospital bed. Take note of the symptoms. Observe them well, gentlemen. The eyes, jaundice, the gums, bleeding, headache, nausea. The boy hasn't omitted a single symptom. Beautiful, beautiful. Major Reed, yes, Major Gorgas? How long did you say between the bite and the first symptom? Three days, nine and a half hours. Three days, nine and a half hours for Reed. Months before that for Caroline Lazier and 19 years for Dr. Finley. The truth has been conceived and delivered into life. A new baby for science and medicine career. Major Reed, this is an impressive moment. I'm going out after this mosquito. Let me shake your hand, sir. If that boy's convinced you, Gorgas, that he did get the infection from the mosquito and if those other two healthy as ever in the filth of that dirty house have shown you the disease cannot in nature be contracted except from the mosquito, then you may. But if you have any shadow of reservation on either point... We have a new case of people coming in, sir. Dr. Ames just went down to look at... A new case? The silence falls like a chill across the heart. The outstretched hand drops. A new found world tatters on its slender foundations. The case, it's not from our isolation camp. Yes, sir. They didn't say who, though. Two of the men went down to carry the stretcher up from the ambulance. The moments are letting in eternities. The tongue clings like dry cotton to the roof of the mouth. The throat is dry. The hands clammy. The victory that seems so close is trembling into tears. They could not have caught it in the dirty house. But there hasn't been a mosquito near that pair. That had wrecked things worse than Lazier's death. The footsteps approach slowly. The heart races to meet them, but the feet are rooted to the floor. They're afraid to look at the stretcher. Good afternoon to you, doctor. Oh, Hera. This man doesn't have yellow fever, Dr. Ames. Yes, he has. I just examined him. He doesn't make sense. He should have come down four days ago. Well, now I'll tell you. I couldn't bear to let Brinkerhoff get ahead of me. He should have kept those mosquitoes he always locked up. Oh, Hera. Oh, Hera. Now science and humanity become one in the person of Johnny O'Hara. And no shadow of gain for him, but his own satisfaction. And only the vanity and glory of that. So the job's done. And the doubts and discouragements are memories now. And the mosquito's poison, talon, will be dealt with and destroyed. Well, Carol, the last microscope's packed and we've closed the door of the Cuban laboratory. A dirty house has made a fine bonfire and grass can grow once more where Brinkerhoff, no Hera, pits the tent. None of the boys are much the worse for wear. And we are going home. I wish we were taking Lazir home with us. I wish you were coming, Agromonte. No, doctor. I am Cuban-born. I must stay in Cuba. The rig you ordered to take you down to the transport's ready whenever you are, sir. Good. I'm tired. A man does what he has to do and is tired. And the rest that follows is a good rest, for he has earned it. Well, take a last look at Cuba, Carol. Yes, a last look, because the island slips slowly from the ship. A last look at the jungle's kingdom of the monkey and the tortoise and the manatee. A last salute to Lazir and the others who died too soon. And a parting gesture to that enemy, more dangerous and more deadly than anything sent out of those jungles to defy man. A last look, rich and full with the solemn knowledge of victory and triumph over death. In a moment we'll bring back our star, Ronald Coleman. But first, ladies and gentlemen, may we leave you with this thought. Chenle Laboratories, maker of penicillin Chenle, presents this program with a reminder that your doctor in his work of keeping you well has at his fingertips the whole world of science. The firms whose research scientists continually seek new aids to health are guided by the desire constantly to increase the number of valuable drugs with which your doctor fights disease. Chenle Laboratories is numbered among those firms whose resources of knowledge and skill are at your doctor's command. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Coleman. To sum up the spirit of this Chenle Laboratories program, this simple and beautiful prayer of the physician written centuries ago by my monadies to be apt and fitting. The eternal providence has appointed me to watch over the life and death of all my creatures. May I always see in the patient a fellow creature in pain. Grant me strength and opportunity always to extend domain of my craft. This is the prayer of the physician. It is ages old, yet today it is as new as the hope for a peaceful way of life for all the world. May we invite you to listen again next week at this same time when Chenle Laboratories presents Green Light starring Robert Young, a great star in a great story. Good night. Yellowjack was produced and directed by Bill Lawrence. It was a Gene Holloway adaptation of the play by Sidney Holland. This is Frank Graham speaking for Chenle Laboratories, producer of Penicillin Chenle and Chenle Pharmaceuticals. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.