Balto and his team waited anxiously with driver Gunnar Kaasen to carry the desperately needed serum over the second to last leg of the relay to Nome while Leonhard Seppala, the heroic Toga, and his team arrived on the northern coast of Norton Sound just ahead of the ice breaking up behind them. Seppala handed …
Category Archives: Diptheria in Nome
Sled Dogs Rescued Nome
Dogs, sled dogs, offered the only possible rescue for the dying people of Nome, Alaska. In the winter of 1925, Dr Welch, Nome’s only doctor, fought a diphtheria epidemic that threatened to wipe out everyone in Nome and the surrounding area. Through January he lost a few more patients every day. Without diphtheria antitoxin he …
Diphtheria in Nome
Diphtheria antitoxin expires. In the summer of 1924 Dr. Welch, the only doctor in Nome Alaska, discovered that his batch had done just that, and he immediately ordered more. But anything coming to Nome in 1925 came over oceans; and the Port of Nome, just two degrees shy of the Arctic Circle, closed in November; …