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Suicide bomber hits Tunisia resort,
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man rides bike for getting surgery
Attempted to find comment input, so
DAMN another text from BOOM!!!
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Historic idiocy, c. 1907
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Darwin Awards
2013 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Historic idiocy, c. 1907

2013 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

Not certain if this one would qualify, but if you're interested in a historical act of complete idiocy: James Caroll (1854- 1907) was part of the team of scientists who were researching yellow fever for the U.S. government in the early 1900's. His colleagues had come up with a theory that yellow fever was an insect borne illness, rather than transmitted via air, water, or person- to person contact. James Carroll did not believe this, and to prove his colleagues wrong, he intentionally subject himself to being bitten by the mosquitoes that his colleagues were experimenting with in their labs. SURPRISE!!! James Carroll subsequently contracted yellow fever, and then he died from the disease in 1907. Technically, I'm not certain if this constitutes an act of Darwinian level idiocy because the entire concept of viruses which were transmitted via insects was not yet well understood, but the concept that some insects ARE indeed carriers of a number of diseases was well understood at the time.... In fact it was the death of James Carroll which led to scientists around the world accepting that yellow fever was in fact a mosquito- borne disease.

Submitted on 10/18/2013

Submitted by: Scott Benowitz
Reference:

Copyright © 2013 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Candi said:
Definitely Toss: Other
Sorry, but all known historical Darwins are already in the archives. Plus, at the time this occurred, germ theory wasn't universally accepted. Thanks anyway, and submit again.


Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
The fact that the method of transmission wasn't known and Carroll was a scientist willing to risk his life to prove his theory doesn't reach the level of self-selection required for a DA. Thanks just the same.


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