Armstrong – Table of Contents

Monday morning, he told me how sick he was and how he had been up all night near a
radiator with a blanket around him and couldn’t keep warm; we suspected psittacosis
right away. Dr. McCoy made arrangements to put him in the Navy Hospital. He also
died. On the day he died, I was taken sick. I had a temperature of 102F and went home.
Arrangements were made to put me in the hospital. I had psittacosis. There were 9 or 11
cases (in the Laboratory including guest investigator Dr. Ludvig Hektoen). Shorty
Anderson died, the rest of us lived. There was no treatment. Dr.Stenson (? Spencer)
suggested we get some serum from the people who recovered. If they could give it to us,
we might have some antibodies that we could passively transfer to an individual. I was
the first one to get serum. When Mrs. Borah took sick, he (Senator Borah) wired the
laboratory for serum immediately. Our little supply had been exhausted. I suggested we
take some of my blood and send it out. It wouldn’t do any harm. They decided to do this.
They bled me, and Dr. (W. T.) Harrison stayed up all night preparing it. It had to be
prepared carefully because there was no chance to study it for sterility. He got it ready
and took it down to the waiting airplane and away it went to Boise, Idaho. When it
arrived they (the attending physicians) were having a consultation. The old doctor had
called in a younger doctor. The old doctor said there was no use giving the serum to Mrs.
Borah as she was dying. The young doctor disagreed with that. It was very valuable
serum and lots of money was spent to get it. The young doctor said he would give it to
her, but wouldn’t give it in small doses, rather, give it to her all at once in the vein; if it
had any virtues it would have full chance to work; if it hadn’t any, it wouldn’t do any
harm. The old Senator was for that, and it was decided to give it before the old doctor
changed his mind. She was given the serum, put back to bed and her temperature began