When Dr Curtis Welch checked on a very sick three-year-old patient who had been admitted to his tiny hospital on January 20, 1925, his worst fears were realised. A thick, slimy membrane had appeared on the toddler, Billy Barnett’s tonsils and there were reddish lesions in his mouth. The rise in tonsillitis cases in Nome, Alaska – some of them fatal – already had Welch worried. But Barnett’s disturbing new symptoms confirmed the doctor’s suspicions.
It could only be diphtheria, an ancient and gruesome bacteria which suffocated its victims by infesting their windpipes with mucus.
