Northwest History. Alaska. Crosson, Joe.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1936
• Subjects: serum; Alaska fever; antitoxin; Fairbanks; Joe Crosson; scarlet fever; F. B. Gillespie; Deputy Territorial Health Officer; University of Alaska; Murray Stewart; J. Ames; Juneau; American commercial ace; Bering Sea; frozen Siberia; Point Barrow; Will Rogers; Wiley Post; Seattle; plane crash; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Alaska; Eielson; Pacific; Barrow; Siberia
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/90133

Serum Rushed By Air Aids In Alaska Fever: Doctors Begin Using Antitoxin At Fairbanks After 1,600-Mile Trip By Crosson And Others. SERUM RUSHED BY AIR AIDS IN ALASKA FEVER Doctors Begin Using Antitoxin at Fairbanks After 1,600-Mile Trip by Crosson and Others. FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Jan. 5 (/P). —Serum rushed through sub-zero weather by Joe Crosson, "mercy" air hero, was used today in the battle here against scarlet fever, of which a dozen persons are ill. Twenty others are suspected of having been subject to contagion. Dr. F. B. Gillespie, Deputy Territorial Health Officer, began immediate administration of the antitoxin. Only he and one other physician were here to lead the fight, and they have been working day and night. This city of 2,500 remained virtually in a state of siege. Special police patrolled the streets. Theatres, schools, churches, the University of Alaska and all meeting places were closed. Residents stayed at home. "It was all in the day's work," said Crosson, who with two other fliers made a 1,600-mile round trip to Juneau and back after the serum supply here was exhausted. It was 42 degrees below zero when Crosson, Co-Pilot Murray Stewart and J. Ames, flight mechanic, left Fairbanks, and 45 below when they returned last night, nine hours and forty-two minutes later. They stopped only fifty minutes in Juneau and averaged better than 175 miles an hour elapsed time. Hundreds of miles were over dangerous mountain country. At times the fliers climbed to 18,000 feet to avoid cloud banks. It was Crosson who found th« wrecked plane of Carl Ben Eielson, an American commercial ace who lost his life many years ago across the Bering Sea in frozen Siberia. On another occasion, he flew diphtheria serum from Juneau to Point Barrow, 1,300 miles, to help stem an epidemic in the northernmost American settlement. It was he who flew the bodies of Will Rogers and Wiley Post from Point Barrow to Seattle after their plane crash.