Sled Dogs Were Lifesavers in the Serum Run
Years before the birth of the Iditarod, 20 mushers teamed up for a relay race in which first prize was saving the lives of children in Nome, not a Dodge truck and a big check. In 1925, the Serum Run was a race against the spread of diphtheria, an often-fatal contagious disease.
Diphtheria is now a rare disease in the U.S., with only 41 reported cases in the last 15 years. Doctors vaccinate most newborns to prevent the disease, which is still prevalent in some developing countries. Symptoms of the disease include a swollen throat and a dirty white membrane that forms within the mouth. When Nome's only doctor, Curtis Welch, saw this symptom in a six-year-old Eskimo boy, he knew the people of the town-especially children and Native Alaskans, who were vulnerable to introduced diseases-were in danger. Dr. Welch had enough vaccine for perhaps five people. Nome's population during January of 1925 was 1,429.
In his book on the Serum Run, titled The Race to Nome, Kenneth Ungermann described why the people of Nome were in such immediate peril. Diphtheria moves from person to person by respiratory secretions or through droplets in the air. One can pick up the bacteria that causes the disease by being close to an infected person who coughs, sneezes, or even laughs. Dr. Welch knew the disease would spread quickly through the town unless he could get a large batch of diphtheria antitoxin as soon as possible.
The solution for such a problem today would be simple-ask a pilot in Anchorage or Fairbanks to deliver the vaccine within a few hours. But in 1925, nothing got to Nome quickly. Bush pilots, such as Ben Eielson and Noel Wien, had just begun to test the skies over Alaska. No one knew how a small engine would react to 40-below-zero air, not to mention the effects of its sting on pilots who flew in the open cockpits of the day.
Then, as today, Nome's closest link to any motorized form of transportation was the Alaska Railroad, which slants closest to Nome at the town of Nenana. Between the two towns were frozen rivers with scattered villages along their banks. During winter, the only people to travel portions of the lonely distance between Nenana and Nome were dog mushers who delivered mail among villages.
Dr. Welch used a wireless telegraph to relay the news of Nome's plight to Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Seward. Someone sent the message to Juneau, where territorial governor Scott Bone promised to help. News agencies outside Alaska picked up the story from the telegraph, and Nome's plight became front-page news all over America.
A doctor at the Anchorage hospital had a good supply of diphtheria vaccine that he agreed to send to Nome. Territorial governor Bone decided the antidote would travel by train from Anchorage to Nenana, then by dog power for the next 674 miles to Nome.
The quickest way for the serum to reach Nome was to enlist the help of a series of mushers who agreed to exchange the packet of serum like a relay baton. On January 27, 1925, a railroad conductor handed a 20-pound cylindrical package wrapped in canvas to Wild Bill Shannon, the first of 20 mushers to move the diphtheria antidote closer to Nome. Near midnight,
Shannon started his nine dogs on the 52-mile trip to Tolovana, where he would hand the serum to another musher. The temperature was 35 degrees below zero. Shannon and 19 other mushers, including champion racer Leonhard Seppala and a wiry Native man known as "Jackscrew" who carried the serum 40 miles from Kaltag to Old Woman cabin, transported the package to Nome in five days, and seven-and-one-half hours. After the serum thawed, Dr. Welch found it still viable, and he inoculated most of the people in Nome. He lifted the quarantine in Nome on Feb. 21st, one month after he first noticed the symptoms of diphtheria in the six-year old boy.
