Welcome to lore legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark,

even if they can't always be proven by the history books.

So if you're ready, let's begin. It's safe to assume that he knew what he was doing.

Sure, Dr. Jesse William Lazier hadn't started out his mission thinking that he would kill himself.

He was there to save lives, not take them.

Jesse, you see, was one of the foremost medical researchers in the country, studying

yellow fever since 1895.

By 1900, the high mortality disease had killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Entire cities would be ravaged, and during the Spanish-American War in Cuba, five times as many

men died from yellow fever as they did on the battlefield.

Something had to be done.

And so, after the war, the United States Army brought doctors down to Cuba.

Reporting to Kemadas in 1900, Jesse joined some of the best medical practitioners in the country,

and together they formed the Yellow Fever Board, hoping to discover the root cause of the disease.

In the end, it was Jesse who figured it out.

He believed that infected mosquitoes were transmitting yellow fever through their bites,

but there was no way to prove it without

sacrificing people by forcing mosquitoes upon them. So Jesse did what he had to do. He intentionally

let a mosquito bite him. Within days, he was dead, and everyone knew exactly what had killed him.

Today there is a memorial to Jesse in Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral,

a pain of stained glass depicting a man injecting himself with a deadly shot.

It's a part of a larger window entitled Sacrifice for Freedom.

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