History Spotlight, 2/2

The 1925 serum run to Nome, Alaska ended today and inspired the yearly Iditarod dogsled race today. Nome is only two degrees south of the Arctic Circle and it's harbor is icebound between November and July. Nome was scheduled to get a shipment of diphtheria vaccine, but the especially cold weather that fall froze the harbor earlier than was predicted. It was right about then that the town doctor discovered that what diphtheria vaccine they did have on hand had expired.
Just as the last ship was leaving at the end of November, a two-year old Native American boy from a nearby village was brought to the town doctor, Curtis Welch, with a sore throat. Welch originally diagnosed this as tonsillitis, rather than diphtheria, because no one else in the village had showed symptoms and diphtheria is extremely contagious. The boy died the next day and there were several other cases of tonsillitis, including one fatality, by the end of December. At this point, I have to think Dr. Welch is getting a case of wishful thinking. When there was finally a case that couldn't be diagnosed as anything else, the doctor administered the expired vaccine, but the patient died anyway. Dr. Welch then asked the town mayor to send a radio massage to the Alaskan territorial government asking for at least a million units of diphtheria vaccine to stave off an epidemic.
There were two proposals for getting the vaccine to Nome. The first was via airplane - the first winter landing on snow had taken place recently. The second was with a relay team of dog sleds. There were two problems with using the plane. First, the only two qualified pilots were out of the territory and wouldn't be back for a week. There was a trainee available and willing to take the risk, but the second problem is that the aircraft available were all WWI-surplus, with an open cockpit and water-cooled engines - two big problems in -40 (and below) weather. The dog sleds were the way to go. Five relay teams were set up and braved blizzard conditions and hurricane force, but the serum made it to Nome before the epidemic got out of hand.