Autographed letter from Dr. Carlos Finlay requesting an opportunity to meet with the members of the Academy of Sciences in Havana, 1878

A one-page autograph letter signed by Dr. Carlos Finlay, pioneer in yellow fever research who first discovered that the yellow fever virus was transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitos and provided assistance to Walter Reed and the Yellow Fever Commission. Autograph signed letters from Dr. Finlay are very rare.

In this 1878 letter to the members of the Academy of Sciences in Havana. In an approximate translation Dr. Finlay states:

Deseoso de hacer una buena comunicacion a la academia en la señor del 8 de septiembre/78 agradecere K.U.I. . Se me permita leerla despues que le haya dado cuenta de la correspondencia. Dios quiera a Vd mis saludos

Habana, sep 8 de 1878

Carlos Finlay

-Ant Mestre

Secretario General

The English translation reads:

I am eager to make a good communication to the Academy in the year of the Lord September 8 78 I will thank R.V.I. May I read it after I have given you an account of the correspondence. May God give you my greetings.

Havana, 8 sep 1878

Carlos Finlay

Sr. D.D. Ant Mestre

Secretary General

Although Dr. Carlos Finlay became a world renowned figure in epidemiology and infectious diseases and a national hero of Cuba, he had a long history of poor professional relationships and disagreement with the Cuban medical establishment, and in particular, the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. It began in 1853, when Finlay was refused admittance to the University of Habana Medical School, and enrolled in Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia instead. Graduating in 1855 with a Doctor of Medicine from the prestigious Philadelphia medical school, upon returning to Cuba the Spanish-Cuban authorities refused to validate his medical degree. The Academy of Sciences, for seven years after 1864, denied full membership to Dr. Finlay. He proposed that a cholera epidemic in 1867 had been caused by sewage contamination of the public water supply—a suggestion greeted at the time with disdain. In fact, the subject of his thesis for solicitation for Membership in the Academy was the etiology of yellow fever. On 14 August 1881, Dr. Carlos Juan Finlay stood before an audience at the Royal Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences in Havana and read a paper entitled, “The Mosquito Hypothetically Considered as the Agent of Transmission of Yellow Fever.” His paper was summarily dismissed by the assemblage.

Contributed by anonymous