Yellow Jack

Based on a true story, in 1898 Cuba, U.S. troops who have survived the Spanish-American War are now dying by the hundreds from yellow fever, known as "yellow jack." Major Walter Reed (1851–1902), an Army physician, struggles to find the cause of the infection and to overcome governmental interference. As the virus hits the military and civilian population in Havana, Cuba, Reed turned to the discredited theory by the Cuban doctor Carlos Finlay (1833–1913) that yellow fever is transmitted by a particular mosquito species, rather than by direct contact. Reed decides that the only way to test the theory is to expose his own men to the disease. He cannot order men to undergo the test. Yet finding volunteers seems impossible. Without them, though, yellow jack will perhaps kill millions.