We acknowledge that we have read or heard of the miraculous event that occurred during the winter of 1924-25 when 20 dog sled teams traversed 675 miles of bleak Alaskan wasteland in just under 6 days, saving the lives of countless natives, including children from some nefarious outcome due to an outbreak of diphtheria.
We have praised the exploits of the dogs, and we acknowledged the contributions of their mushers. Movies have been made of their exploits; songs have been sung; books have been written; and I can do no better. But I do like to add a touch of the unexpected, and with the idea to laud the mushers, something I had noted that not many before had done, I thought I had hit upon a good idea.
Now I have come to learn of another – some other among God’s precious creatures who played a very significant and important, though little known part in the miracle that took place in Alaska.
First, let us look at the disease caused by a tiny creature, which although among God’s creatures, not one of those for whom we hold any undue fondness – the bacterium called Corynebacterium diphtheriae, which causes an upper respiratory tract infection, and among other things, high fever, skin lesions, swollen neck glands, and ultimately death.
In most civilized countries around the world diphtheria has been nearly eradicated, thanks to the development of a diphtheria anti-toxin, but some third-world countries are still plagued by the disease. Most states require school-aged children to be inoculated against the disease, and so virulent is the disease that it is recommended by the Federal Drug Administration that adults receive a booster.
Today there are so few cases of diphtheria reported in the United States (only three cases in the past decade) that the FDA has declared the disease all but eradicated. Furthermore, many of the dreaded diseases that plagued mankind since the beginning of time have been all but wiped out or otherwise guarded against due to the development of other anti-toxins, and due to a single, almost never before noticed incident involving another among God’s precious creatures.
Jim was a hard worker – a low-maintenance, high producing laborer who plied his trade on a daily basis, providing a useful service for his neighbors, receiving minimal remuneration for his chores; yet for all his labors Jim never complained, but went about his work as if he had been born and bred for it, as indeed he had been. Jim plied his trade around the turn of the century (1900) in St. Louis, Missouri. Nothing is known of his pedigree, and for good reason: who cares about the pedigree of a horse?
Well, if Jim had been a thoroughbred race horse plenty would be found about Jim, but Jim was no thoroughbred. Jim was an ordinary work horse who specialized in pulling wagons. More to the point, Jim was a milk-wagon horse.
Back in the day, milk was delivered daily to the stoops of neighborhood houses, and it had to be delivered daily since refrigerators were nonexistent. Milk spoils easily and quickly, so the only way that city people could be assured of a daily supply of fresh milk, butter, and eggs was to have them delivered by a local dairy, usually by horse-drawn wagon.
Wagons were horse-drawn in those days because naturally automobiles were scarce. So what exactly was it that Jim did to contribute in a meaningful way to the salvation of the citizens of Nome Alaska, and even more significantly to the development of antitoxins, whose administration is so highly recommended by the Federal Drug Administration?
First, without going into great detail, anti-toxins and vaccinations are developed in essentially the same way. A weakened strain of a virulent bacteria is used to develop the serums needed to vaccinate against disease, and to otherwise treat these diseases. It was learned early on that a person’s own body produces protein structures called “antibodies,” which then fight against invading pathogens or other foreign material. In the cases of the more virulent diseases, however, a human’s defense mechanism usually isn’t enough by itself to fight off the disease, hence diphtheria and others are more lethal to humans.
In the case of the diphtheria serum, it had been discovered that the best and most efficient way to develop the serum was to use an organism that could produce a stronger antibody in a greater amount than a human can, and it was decided, after much trial and error, that the ideal organism for the job was a horse.
I admit to being a bit lazy here, and I must admit that I do not know if horses are still used, but at the time of our story horses were used to develop many of the serums in use. Upon his retirement from milk-wagon duty, Jim was employed in a new line of work: producing diphtheria anti-toxin serum, and it was a batch of Jim’s serum that was carried to Nome, Alaska that day. So in a way, Jim, having served his fellow man for many years by delivering fresh dairy products, was able to continue in service to mankind in his retirement years by producing much needed and very important medicinal products.
Alas, during one of Jim’s rounds of serum development, a batch of Jim’s serum became contaminated. Several people who received Jim’s serum became sick as a result, and many died, including Jim himself. So Jim was laid to rest, and not much has been said or thought about him since. But as the result of careless handling of Jim’s anti-toxin producing machinery, the United States Congress in 1902 passed the Biologic Control Act of 1902, which set up government regulatory oversight of all biological products.
And as the result of Jim’s death, we are all much safer from disease today than ever before.
