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REED, WALTER 1851-1902

ARMY SURGEON AND PATHOLOGIST

Early Career

Born in Belroi, Virginia, on 13 September 1851, Walter Reed was the son of Methodist minister Lemuel S. Reed and his wife, Pharaba. Reed received his first medical degree from the University of Virginia in 1869 and a second degree from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City the following year. After a two-year internship in Brooklyn, he served in two public health posts in New York City until 1875. In that year he joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps and rotated through various U.S. posts—including Fort Apache, Arizona—until being named to the just-opened Army Medical School's faculty in 1893. Prior to this assignment, Reed spent two years studying pathology under the famed Dr. William Welch at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Much of this work involved laboratory research on hog cholera and typhoid fever. His studies of microscopic bacteriology under Welch were useful in his academic post in Washington, D.C.

Academic Career

Reed spent much of the final decade of his life doing original laboratory and clinical work related to bacterial diseases. He published journal articles as well as books on typhoid and yellow fevers. Especially important were his studies of typhoid, a disease that killed American soldiers in Cuba during the 1898 Spanish-American War at a rate fifty times greater than combat injuries. As chairman of a typhoid commission, Reed demonstrated that filthy camp conditions were ideal for the flies that carried the infected fecal matter.

Yellow Fever Conquered

Reed's greatest triumph also took place in Cuba. During the American army's occupation of the island beginning in 1898, yellow fever appeared among the troops with increasing frequency. As early as 1848 Alabama physician Josiah Nott theorized that mosquitoes were the carriers—or vectors—of yellow fever. A physician in Cuba, Carlos Finlay, attempted to revive the mosquito theory fifty years later. No one listened, despite the fact that Ronald Ross had just proven in 1897 that some species of mosquito carried malaria. Army surgeon general Sternberg named Reed to lead a commission to Cuba to study yellow fever. Elaborate quarters were constructed to provide controlled conditions for the commission members to experiment upon themselves and keep detailed records. This effort produced convincing proof that the Aedes aegypti mosquito was responsible for yellow fever transmission, though it cost some members of Reed's team their lives.

Glory Cut Short

Following Reed's discovery the U.S. Army under Chief Sanitary Officer William Gorgas quickly implemented a vigorous mosquito extermination program in Cuba, and for almost a year not a single case of the fever appeared on the island, After five exhausting trips to Cuba, Reed returned to the United States expecting to be named surgeon general. Instead, he died of appendicitis on 23 November 1902 at the age of fiftyone.