Bitten on the thirteenth, he sickened on the eighteenth and died on the twenty-fifth of September, but not until he had succeeded in showing in two instances that mosquitoes could convey the infection.

He added another to the long list of members of the profession who have laid down their lives in search of the causes of disease.

Of such men as Lazear and of Myers of the Liverpool Yellow-Fever Commission, Dutton and young Manson, may fitly be sung from the noblest of American poems the tribute which Lowell paid to Harvard's sons who fell in the War of Secession: Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her; But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life's dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her.
Fortunately, the commander-in-chief at the time in Cuba was General Leonard Wood, who had been an army surgeon, and he was the first to appreciate the importance of the discovery.

The sanitation of Havana was placed in the hands of Dr.Gorgas, and within nine months the city was cleared of yellow fever, and, with the exception of a slight outbreak after the withdrawal of the American troops, has since remained free from a disease which had been its scourge for centuries.

As General Wood remarked, "Reed's discovery has resulted in the saving of more lives annually than were lost in the Cuban War, and saves the commercial interest of the world a greater financial loss each year than the cost of the Cuban War.