Title:

Letter from Michael Heidelberger to Richard G. Hodges, United States Army Air Forces

Creator:

Heidelberger, Michael

Recipient:

Hodges, Richard G. and United States. Army Air Forces

Date:

18 January 1945

Description:

During World War II Heidelberger served as a member of the Pneumonia Commission established by the Board for the Investigation and Control of Influenza and Other Infectious Diseases (later the Army Epidemiological Board) under the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army. The Commission, headed by Colin MacLeod, a microbiologist and co-discoverer of the genetic properties of DNA, organized a trial of a vaccine against pneumococcal pneumonia developed by Heidelberger. The trial, carried out among 20,000 trainees at an air base in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, proved that a vaccine made from a mixture of purified capsular polysaccharides from four different types of pneumococcus (types I, II, V, and VII) provided effective protection against pneumonia when compared with a control group which received saline solution, and which had a higher incidence of the disease. Hodges, who oversaw the trial at the camp, sent Heidelberger blood samples from immunized soldiers for analysis of their antibody count. In his letter Heidelberger expressed excitement about the unambiguous results of the trial.

Location:

Box: 14. Folder: 2

Rights:

Public Domain

Genre:

Letters (correspondence)

Subject:

Pneumonia and Vaccines

Format:

Text

Extent:

1 pages

Relation:

Lab notes from a vaccine trial at Sioux Falls Army Air Field, 1944
Letter from Richard G. Hodges, United States Army Air Forces to Michael Heidelberger, 1944
Letter from Richard G. Hodges, United States Army Air Forces to Michael Heidelberger, 1945

Language:

English

Legacy ID:

DHBBLQ

NLM ID:

101584940X175

Profiles Collection:

The Michael Heidelberger Papers

Shareable Link:

https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584940X175

Story Section:

Antigens and Antibodies: Heidelberger and The Rise of Quantitative Immunochemistry, 1928-1954