1833-1915

Cuban Physician, Epidemiologist and Public Health Reformer

Although the American physician Walter Reed (1851-1902) is generally associated with the discovery of the means of transmission of yellow fever, it was the Cuban physician Carlos Juan Finlay who first provided evidence that the Aedes egypti mosquito served as the vector of the disease. Yellow fever was one of the most feared epidemic diseases of the nineteenth century. An understanding of the means of transmission of the disease led to a fairly high level of control over the disease and was instrumental in the successful completion of the Panama Canal.

Finlay was born in Camagüey, Cuba. His father was a Scottish physician and his mother was French. Finlay attended schools in France and Germany before enrolling at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. While a medical student, Finlay became interested in Professor John Kearsly Mitchell's...