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; stayed closed until July.
When winter set in, Dr. Welch had only expired diphtheria antitoxin.
In December children with sore throats—tonsillitis, the doctor hoped—began showing up at Dr. Welch’s 25-bed hospital. There was nothing unusual about that. But they kept coming… And Welch worried. In mid-January he diagnosed a three-year-old boy with diphtheria. The child died.
The next day a seven-year-old girl turned up with the same symptoms. Desperate, Welch tried using some of the expired antitoxin. The girl died a few hours later.
He fired off a desperate telegram to the Public Health Service. “An Epidemic of diphtheria is almost inevitable here STOP I am in urgent need of one million units of diphtheria antitoxin STOP Mail is only form of transportation STOP”
By the end of January Welch had treated 20 cases of diphtheria and he judged 50 more people at risk. Just a few years earlier, in 1918 and 1919, Spanish flu had wiped out 50% of the population in the area surrounding Nome.
An infinitely more dangerous disease, diphtheria could wipe out 100%–potentially 10,000 people would die.
Just a few years later, bush pilots would have dealt with this emergency. But in 1925 bush pilots had only begun to ply their unique trade in Alaska. Carl Eielson had flown a De Havilland DH-4 on eight experimental trips, the longest only 260 miles in temperatures down only to ten below zero. The medicine waited much farther than 260 miles from Nome and temperatures hovered much farther than ten below.
Roy Darling volunteered to try the flight with the only plane available—a Standard J biplane. The plane had an open cockpit and unreliable water-cooled engines. And Roy Darling had little experience as a bush pilot. The Board of Health said no.
In 1925 dog sleds delivered anything that made its way to Nome in winter.
Stay tuned…
(Note: this story used information from Wikipedia, “1925 serum run to Nome” and history.com)
I had an uncle who raced and finished the ididorod in the seventies we lived in the finger lakes region of new yours and he was always running his dogs even in summer with wheels on his sled
Clearly you know what came next. And, by the way, where in the Fingerlakes? I went to graduate school at Cornell.
People had to be strong and tough to survive the North…
Unbelievably tough.