Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. AP Photo, File. Now, years later, Nome is remembering its saviors β the sled dogs and mushers who raced for more than five days through hypothermia, frostbite, gale-force winds and blinding whiteouts to deliver life-saving serum and free the community from the grip of diphtheria.
Other communities are also marking the anniversary β including the village of Nenana, where the relay began, and Cleveland, Ohio, where the serum run's most famous participant, a husky mix named Balto, is stuffed and displayed at a museum. Jonathan Hayes, a Maine resident who has been working to preserve the genetic line of sled dogs driven on the run by famed musher Leonhard Seppala, is recreating the trip.
Hayes left Nenana on Monday with 16 Seppala Siberian sled dogs, registered descendants of Seppala's team. The historic trek to neutralize the diphtheria epidemic in Nome. Diphtheria is an airborne disease that causes a thick, suffocating film to develop at the back of the throat; it was once a leading cause of death for children. The antitoxin used to treat it was developed in , and a vaccine in ; it is now exceedingly rare in the U.
Its most recent supply ship had arrived the previous fall, before the Bering Sea froze, without any doses of the antitoxin. Those the local doctor, Curtis Welch, had were outdated, but he wasn't worried. Within months, that changed. In a telegram, Welch pleaded with the U. Public Health Service to send serum: "An epidemic of diphtheria is almost inevitable here. The first death was a 3-year-old boy on Jan. By the end of the month, there were more than 20 confirmed cases.
The city was placed under quarantine. West Coast hospitals had antitoxin doses, but it would take time to get them to Seattle and then onto a ship for Seward, an ice-free port south of Anchorage. In the meantime, enough for 30 people was found at an Anchorage hospital. It still had to get to Nome. Airplanes with open-air cockpits were ruled out as unsuited for the weather.
