Article April 12, 1919 Issue

The experiments made at Goat Island by Navy doctors...

Oakland (Cal.) Enquirer

The experiments made at Goat Island by Navy doctors in an effort to learn something about the influenza germ, carry a lesson that every person should study and understand. Fifty young sailors volunteered to become influenza victims, that the doctors might study the disease more carefully. These young men had no fear of the disease; they willingly offered themselves. They were placed with flu patients; they were given jars of flu germs, which they breathed into their lungs; they had flu germs injected into their bodies. Then the medical men prepared to study the cases as they developed.

But no cases developed among these fifty sailors! These men had been inoculated; they had been exposed to the disease in every manner; they had breathed in the germs and eaten and slept with flu victims, and not one of them became infected! The medical men confessed themselves baffled. All their ideas of the disease were turned topsy-turvy. The bunk about the masks was again exposed; and it was shown that the disease was not communicable, not contagious. The doctors are still wondering. The explanation, however, is simplicity itself, for it was proved by each one of these fifty young men.

These fifty young men volunteered to act as subjects upon which to be experimented. This showed clearly that they did not fear the disease. In other words, they could not acquire what they did not fear. Since their fear of the disease was gone, the disease was absolutely nonexistent, even though every effort was made to force it on them.

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