He was an American Army surgeon and scientist who studied bacteria and discovered through his research what causes yellow fever and thereby how to fight it and in the process saved the lives of countless people.
Born in Virginia on september 13 1851 he was educated at the university there and later went on to Bellevue Hospital Medical college. From there he joined the U.S. Army and entered the Medical Corps as a surgeon. By 1893 he was teaching bateriology and microscopy at the Army Medical Museum in Washington. It was here that he began his research into transmitted diseases such as yellow fever and typhoid Fever. His work in the field led to an understanding of how these diseases worked and how they could be prevented both among soldiers in the military and civilians.
His biggest contribution came in 1900. He was appointed director of a commission to look into what was causing an outbreak of yellow fever in the nation of Cuba. Through his investigations he determined that the yellow fever germ was being transmitted by the bite of a specific type of mosquito that was found there. As a result of his work a project to exterminate the mosquitos was undertaken. The result was that the disease was all but eliminated within 3 months. The incidents of yellow fever have been reduced drastically worldwide since 1901 as a result of this effort to stop it.
Shortly after his return from Cuba however he suddenly fell ill from an recurring intestinal condition from which he had long suffered which caused his appendix to rupture. Surgery came too late to save him. He died on November 23 1902 at the age of only 51. The Walter Reed Army Medical center in Washington D.C. is named in his honor.
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Walter Reed was a genuis, no doubt about it. In fact, he remains the youngest ever graduate of the University of Virginia Medical School to this day. But he was not the end-all to scientific research either. (When his Army colleagues were asked later what they thought of Lt Reed at his first military posting out West, they all said he would have been their LAST pick as most likely to succeed. It seemed to have somethinbg to do with his pratical jokes.) Anyway, Reed was Curator of the Army Medical Museum when he was given the Yellow Fever Commission project. Were his personal efforts significant, yes. But was he deserving of ALL the credit, no. In fact, Reed simply took a theory offered by Dr. Carlos Finlay, allowed his colleague Dr. Frederick Russell to conduct experiments without interference, and wrote it all up nice and neat for his superior, the US Army Surgeon General. Reed wasn't even the one who put the conclusion that mosquitos cause Yellow Fever to good use. That fell to Dr. William Gorgas, who cleaned up Cuba and the Canal Zone. The medical center that bears his name in northwest D.C. only does so because some years after his death a close friend lobbied Congress for it. It was probably his premature death from a burst appendix (Reed stubbornly ignored medical advice to have an operation until it was too late) that garnered him a bit of sympathy from the politicians who held the purse strings to fund the new hospital that would bear his name. By the way. Ever wondered why this great American died as a relatively low-ranking Major and did not have a higher grade? Look it up...
Hello--I did not claim that Walter Reed was the end all and be all of medical research.I simply wrote that history records that he is given the majority of the credit. Did he work alone? NO. Is he alone responsible? No. Most research is not done in a vacuum, it is almost always a "team effort" of some kind or other involving many researchers. As far as why Walter Reed Hospital is named in his honor, I did not go into the politics of why that occured, I simply wrote it as the fact that it is. I wrote an article, not a book. When you do that you cant cover everything.
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