Yellow fever by their newly discovered canals, which were perhaps made to absorb carbon and prevent the disease. In 1848, Josiah C. Nott suggested that yellow fever was spread by insects such as moths or mosquitoes, basing his ideas on the pattern of transmission of the disease. Carlos Finlay, a Cuban doctor and scientist, proposed in 1881 that yellow fever might be transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct human contact. Since the losses from yellow fever in the Spanish–American War in the 1890s were extremely high, Army doctors began research experiments with a team led by Walter Reed, and composed of doctors
Yellow fever he had fully credited Dr. Finlay with the discovery of the yellow fever vector, and how it might be controlled. Reed often cited Finlay's papers in his own articles, and also credited him for the discovery in his personal correspondence. The acceptance of Finlay's work was one of the most important and far-reaching effects of the Walter Reed Commission of 1900. Applying methods first suggested by Finlay, the United States government and Army eradicated yellow fever in Cuba and later in Panama, allowing completion of the Panama Canal. While Reed built on the research of Finlay, historian François Delaporte notes