Background
Lazear was the son of William and Charlotte née Pettigrew.
Lazear was the son of William and Charlotte née Pettigrew.
He attended Washington & Jefferson College and obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1889 from Johns Hopkins University and his Doctor of Philosophy in Medicine in 1892 from the Medical School at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was a physician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore starting in 1895. He studied malaria and yellow fever.
He did his specialization in Paris at the Institut Pasteur. In 1900 he reported for duty as the assistant surgeon at Columbia Barracks (Quemados, Cuba) for the United States Army. After a few months in Quemados, Lazear, together with Walter Reed (1851–1902), James Carroll (1854–1907) and Aristides Agramonte (1869–1931), participated in a commission studying the transmission of yellow fever, the Yellow Fever Board.
During his research at Camp Colombia, he confirmed the 1881 hypothesis of Carlos Finlay that mosquitoes transmitted this disease.
He contracted the disease and died at age 34, seventeen days after writing his hopeful letter. The fact that this was a deliberate act was covered up at the time—for reasons unknown, but possibly connected with family insurance policies—and the story put about that Lazear had mistaken the mosquito for an uninfected one of a different species.
The truth was discovered in 1947 by Philip South. Hench from Lazear"s own notebook. A dormitory at Johns Hopkins University was named after him in honor of his sacrifice, as was a former chemistry building at Washington & Jefferson College, Lazear"s alma mater.
He was also a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. Lazear was the only member of the commission who had experience working with mosquitoes, and he used mosquito larvae from Finlay"s laboratory.