Forgotten Contagion Experiments: When the Flu, Measles, and Chickenpox Refused to Spread. In 1919, doctors tried to transmit flu, measles, and chickenpox to healthy volunteers. They failed. Why are these forgotten experiments ignored today?

During the Spanish Flu pandemic, some of the best medical minds of the early 20th century set out to answer a basic question: how do diseases spread? Their goal was simple — prove contagion by exposing healthy volunteers to the sick. The results? Not what anyone expected.

These studies — conducted by Rosenau, McCoy, Richey, Sellards, and Hess — failed to transmit influenza, measles, or chickenpox under controlled conditions. Yet today, their work is largely erased from textbooks. If these diseases were truly “highly infectious,” why did rigorous experiments fail to demonstrate contagion?

Rosenau’s Influenza Trials (Boston, 1919)

• Context: U.S. Navy faced massive influenza outbreaks during WWI. To understand transmission, Dr. Milton Rosenau led experiments at Gallops Island, Boston.

• Method: Over 100 healthy young sailors were exposed to mucus, blood, and direct coughs/sneezes from flu patients. Some even had swabs placed deep into their throats and noses with infectious material.

• Result: Not one subject developed influenza【DOI:10.1001/JAMA.1919.02610420060028】. Rosenau wrote, “We entered the experiments with the notion that we were dealing with a disease easily communicated… but we failed to reproduce the disease in every instance.”

McCoy & Richey (San Francisco, 1919)

• Replication: Dr. L. T. McCoy (Public Health Dept.) and Dr. W. Richey (U.S. Navy) repeated Rosenau’s methods on 50 volunteers.

• Method: Same procedures — nasal secretions, throat swabs, direct exposure.

• Result: No transmission occurred. The volunteers remained healthy.

Richard Sellards and Measles (Johns Hopkins, 1919)

• Method: Sellards injected blood and nasal secretions from measles patients into healthy subjects.

• Result: No one developed measles.

• Comment: Sellards admitted his inability to transmit one of the most “infectious” diseases baffled him.

Alfred Hess and Varicella (Chickenpox, 1918–1919)

• Method: Hess attempted to transmit chickenpox artificially.

• Result: No transmission occurred.

• JAMA Letter: Hess wrote, “We are confronted with two diseases — measles and chickenpox — which we are unable to transmit artificially from man to man… if the same rule holds good for measles, it would seem as if a basic principle must be involved.”

What These Results Mean

The official narrative insists these diseases are contagious. Yet when tested under controlled conditions:

• Flu: Could not be transmitted by exposure to sick patients.

• Measles: Failed to spread via blood or secretions.

• Chickenpox: Also resisted attempts at transmission.

These were not fringe quacks — they were mainstream doctors publishing in leading journals (JAMA, Johns Hopkins Bulletin). Their results have simply been ignored.

Modern Parallels

Fast forward to COVID-19. The same sleight of hand persists:

• Instead of pure isolation, scientists mix patient samples with monkey kidney cells and antibiotics.

• Instead of proving contagion, they rely on PCR amplification of computer-modeled sequences.

• Instead of replication of Rosenau’s rigor, they hide behind “statistical spread.”

When early 20th-century experiments failed to prove contagion, it should have forced medicine to rethink its foundations. Instead, the results were quietly buried.

Why This Matters for Today

If contagion could not be proven in 1919, what does that say about the foundations of germ theory? If today’s virology relies on the same kind of tricks Rosenau’s team tried to avoid, how much of modern medicine rests on assumption rather than demonstration?

These forgotten experiments are not just historical curiosities. They are live evidence that the story of contagion remains unresolved — and that those asking Kirsch and others to prove viral isolation stand on solid ground.

Conclusion

The experiments of Rosenau, McCoy, Richey, Sellards, and Hess deserve more than a footnote. They deserve to be front and center in the debate about contagion.

Until someone replicates these experiments and shows a different result, the evidence remains: influenza, measles, and chickenpox refused to spread under controlled conditions.

For those like Steve Kirsch who posture as truth-tellers, the challenge is clear: fund the experiments, prove the transmission, or admit that the foundation of germ theory is shakier than most dare to imagine.

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