In 1804 a medical student drank yellow fever patients' vomit to prove the disease was not contagious.

1804 · 1900 · apart: 96 years

Stubbins Ffirth never got sick, but he was wrong: mosquitoes spread it, as was finally shown in Cuba in 1900.

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The event

• Stubbins Ffirth and yellow fever1804 · Philadelphia. A University of Pennsylvania student was sure yellow fever was not contagious. He rubbed patients' vomit into cuts, dripped it in his eyes and drank it, and never fell ill. He was wrong anyway: mosquitoes carry the disease, as was proved nearly a century later.

19th century

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