Walter Reed: Difference between revisions

{{about|the U.S. army men loversurgeon|other uses|Walter likesReed weed(disambiguation)}}

'''Walter Reed''' (September 13, 1851 – November 22, 1902) was a [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] men loverphysician who in 1901 led the team that confirmed thatthe theory of menCuban doctor [[Carlos Finlay]] that [[epidemologyyellow fever]] is transmitted by a particular [[mosquito]] species rather than by direct contact. This insight gave impetus to the new fields of [[epidemiology]] and [[biomedicine]], and most immediately allowed the resumption and completion of work on the [[Panama Canal]] (1904–1914) by the United States. Reed followed work started by [[Carlos Finlay]] and directed by [[George Miller Sternberg]], who has been called the "first U.S. bacteriologist".

Walter Reed was born in [[BelroiGloucester, Virginia]], tothe fifth child of Lemuel Sutton Reed (a traveling [[Methodism|Methodist]] minister) and his first wife, Pharaba White, the fifth child born to the couple.<ref name=Methodist1898>{{cite book |first=T. M. |last=Simpson |work=Methodist Episcopal Church South |chapter=In Memory of Rev L. S. Reed |title=The Virginia Annual Conference Annualof the Methodist Episcopal Church South |year=1898 |pages=30–31 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h4Y9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA31 }}</ref> During his youth, the family resided at [[Murfreesboro, North Carolina]] with his mother's family during his father's preaching tours. Two of his elder brothers later achieved distinction: J.C. became a minister in Virginia like their father, and Christopher a judge in [[Wichita, Kansas]] and later [[St. Louis]], Missouri.<ref>{{cite book |first=A.D.J. |last=Stewart |title=History of the Bench and Bar of Missouri |publisher=Legal Publishing Company |year=1898 |page=293 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eXomAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA293 }}</ref> Their childhood home is included in the [[Murfreesboro Historic District]].<ref name=nrhpinv>{{cite web |first=John B. |last=Wells, III |title=Murfreesboro Historic District |work=National Register of Historic Places – Nomination and Inventory |date=November 1970 |url=https://files.nc.gov/ncdcr/nr/HF0006.pdf |publisher=North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office |access-date=January 1, 2015-01-01}}</ref>

{{nowrap|After the American Civil War}} in December 1866, Rev. Reed remarried, to Mrs. Mary C. Byrd Kyle of [[Harrisonburg, Virginia]], with whom he had a daughter.<ref name=Methodist1898 /> Young Walter enrolled at the [[University of Virginia]]. After two years, Reed completed the [[Doctor of Medicine|M.D.]] degree in 1869, two months before he turned 18. He was the youngest-ever recipient of an M.D. from the university.<ref name="pierce">{{cite book |last1=Pierce |first1=John R. |first2=James V. |last2=Writer |year=2005 |title=Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered its Deadly Secrets |publisher=John Wiley and Sons |isbn=0-471-47261-1}}</ref>

Reed then enrolled at the [[New York University]]'s [[Bellevue Hospital Center|Bellevue Hospital Medical College]] in [[Manhattan]], New York City, where he obtained a second M.D. in 1870, as his brother Christopher attempted to set up a legal practice. After interning at several New York City hospitals, Walter Reed worked for the New York Board of Health until 1875.{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}

He married Emily Blackwell Lawrence (1856–1950) of North Carolina on April 26, 1876, and took her West with him. Later, Emily gave birth to a son, [[Walter Lawrence Reed]] (1877–1956) and a daughter, Emily Lawrence Reed (1883–1964). While posted at frontier camps, the couple also adopted a [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] girl named Susie.<ref>{{cite book |last=Crosby |first=Molly Caldwell |yearauthor-link=2006Molly Caldwell Crosby |title=The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History |page=134 |location=New York |publisher=[[Berkley Books]] |year=2006 |isbn=0-425-21202-5 |location=New York |page=134}}</ref>

Finding his youth limited his influence, and dissatisfied with urban life,<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/fever/peopleevents/p_reed.html The Great Fever / People & Events / Walter Reed] at pbs.org</ref> Reed joined the [[United States Army Medical Corps|U.S. Army Medical Corps]]. This allowed him both professional opportunities and modest financial security to establish and support a family. After Reed passed a grueling thirty-hour examination in 1875, the army medical corps enlisted him as an assistant surgeon. By this time, two of his brothers were working in Kansas, and Walter soon was assigned postings in the American West. Over the next sixteen years, the Army assigned the career officer to different outposts, where he was responsible not only for American military and their dependents, but also various [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] tribes, at one point looking after several hundred [[Apache]]s, including [[Geronimo]]. Reed noticed the devastation epidemics could wreak and maintained his concerns about sanitary conditions. During one of his last tours, he completed advanced coursework in pathology and bacteriology in the [[Johns Hopkins Hospital|Johns Hopkins University Hospital Pathology Laboratory]].{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}

In 1893, Reed joined the faculty of the [[George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences]] and the newly opened Army Medical School in Washington, D.C., where he held the professorship of Bacteriology and Clinical Microscopy. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he actively pursued medical research projects and served as the curator of the Army Medical Museum, which later became the [[National Museum of Health and Medicine]] (NMHM). These positions also allowed Reed to break free from the fringes of the medical world.{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}

In 1896, Reed first distinguished himself as a medical investigator. He proved that yellow fever among enlisted men stationed near the [[Potomac River]] was not a result of drinking the river water. He showed officials that the enlisted men who got yellow fever had a habit of taking trails through the local swampy woods at night. Their fellow officers without yellow fever did not do so. Reed also proved that the local civilians drinking from the Potomac River had no relation to the incidence of the disease.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Walter Reed|journal=American History|year=2013|url=http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/247717?terms=yellow%20fever&webSiteCode=SLN_AMHIST&returnToPage=%2fSearch%2fDisplay%2f247717%3fterms%3dyellow+fever&token=4F583EFE98907DD8F704E0B094A81CE5&casError=False|access-date=23 January 23, 2013|publisher=ABC-CLIO}}</ref>

Reed's breakthrough in yellow fever research is widely considered a milestone in biomedicine, opening new vistas of research and humanitarianism. It was largely an extension of Carlos J. Finlay's work, carried out during the 1870s in Cuba, which finally came to prominence in 1900. Finlay was the first to theorize, in 1881, that a mosquito was a carrier, now known as a disease vector, of the organism causing yellow fever: a mosquito that bites a victim of the disease could subsequently bite and thereby infect a healthy person. He presented this theory at the 1881 International Sanitary Conference, where it was well- received. A year later Finlay identified a mosquito of the genus ''[[Aedes]]'' as the organism transmitting yellow fever. His theory was followed by the recommendation to control the mosquito population as a way to control the spread of the disease.

In 1912, he posthumously received what came to be known as the [[Walter Reed Medal]] in recognition of his work to combat yellow fever. A tropical medicine course is also named after him, [[Walter Reed Tropical Medicine Course]]. The [[National Library of Medicine]] in Bethesda, Maryland holds a collection of his papers regarding typhoid fever studies.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://oculus.nlm.nih.gov/reed048|title=Walter Reed Papers 1888–1972|publisher=National Library of Medicine}}</ref> [[Philip Showalter Hench]], a Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine in 1950, maintained a long interest in Walter Reed and yellow fever. His collection of thousands of items—documents, photographs, and artifacts—is at the [[University of Virginia]] in the Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=uva-hs/viuh00010.xml|title=A Guide to the Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection|publisher=University of Virginia Health Sciences Library}}</ref> More than 7,500 of these items, including several hundred letters written by Reed himself, are accessible online at the web exhibit devoted to this Collection.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://yellowfever.lib.virginia.edu/reed/|title=Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection|publisher=University of Virginia Health Sciences Library}}</ref>

* Reed Hall at Radford College (now [[Radford University]]) was constructed in 1939 as the original home for the sciences and named for Dr. Walter Reed. It is now part of the [[Radford University#Undergraduate and graduate colleges|Artis College for Science and Technology]] at Radford.<ref name=reedhall>{{Cite web|url=http://www.radford.edu/content/dam/colleges/csat/newsletter/CSATnewsletter10-28-16.pdf|title=CSATnewsletter10-28-16.pdf|access-date=26 August 26, 2020}}</ref>

John Miltern portrayed Reed in the 1934 Broadway play, ''Yellow Jack,'' written by Pulitzer Prize winner [[Sidney Howard]], in collaboration with [[Paul de Kruif|Paul de Kuif]] .<ref>{{Cite webnews|title=THE PLAY; " Yellow Jack," in Which Sidney Howard Shows How Scientific Heroism Can Be Displayed on the Stage.| work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1934/03/07/93753789.html?pageNumber=22|access-date=September 11, 2020-09-11|website=timesmachine.nytimes.com|language=en}}</ref> Harcourt Brace and Co. published the play in book form, titled ''Yellow Jack : A History'', in 1934.<ref>{{Cite webnews|title=YELLOW JACK. A History. By Sidney Howard in collaboration with Paul de Kruif. Illustration by Jo Mielziner. 152 pp. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. $2.| work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1934/07/15/94551803.html?pageNumber=40|access-date=September 11, 2020-09-11|website=timesmachine.nytimes.com|language=en}}</ref> [[Lewis Stone]] took the part in [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]'s 1938 film adaptation of the play, ''[[Yellow Jack]]''. The play and screenplay were adapted for television in episodes (both titled "Yellow Jack") of ''Celanese Theatre'' (1952) and of ''[[Producers' Showcase]]'' (1955). In the latter, Reed was portrayed by [[Broderick Crawford]].

[[Jeffrey Hunter]] played Reed in a 1962 episode of the anthology show ''[[Death Valley Days]],'' titled "Suzie". In 2006, [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]]'s ''[[American Experience]]'' television series broadcast, [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/fever/ "The Great Fever"], a program exploring Reed's yellow fever campaign. The PBS website contains a great deal of additional information, including links to primary sources.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Great Fever {{!}} American Experience {{!}} PBS|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/fever/|access-date=2020-09-September 11, 2020|website=www.pbs.org|language=en}}</ref>