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Walter Reed (September 13, 1851 – November 23, 1902) was a U.S. Army physician who in 1901 led the team that confirmed the theory of Cuban doctor Carlos Finlay that yellow 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 Finlay and directed by George Miller Sternberg, who has been called the "first U.S. bacteriologist".
in December 1866, Rev. Reed remarried, to Mrs. Mary C. Byrd Kyle of Harrisonburg, Virginia, with whom he had a daughter. Young Walter enrolled at the University of Virginia. After two years, Reed completed the M.D. degree in 1869, two months before he turned 18. He was the youngest-ever recipient of an M.D. from the university.(2025). 9780471472612, John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 9780471472612
Reed then enrolled at the New York University's 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, Reed worked for the New York Board of Health until 1875.
While stationed at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, Reed treated the ankle of Swiss immigrant Jules Sandoz, broken by a fall into a well. Reed wanted to amputate Sandoz's foot, but Sandoz refused his consent, and Reed succeeded in saving the foot by an extensive course of treatment. A photograph of a letter from Reed to Sandoz's father is reproduced in the first edition of Old Jules, the 1935 biography of Sandoz by his daughter Mari Sandoz.
In 1893, Reed joined the faculty of 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.
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.
Reed traveled to Cuba to study diseases in U.S. Army encampments there during the Spanish–American War. Appointed chairman of a panel formed in 1898 to investigate an epidemic of typhoid fever, Reed and his colleagues showed that contact with fecal matter and food or drink contaminated by flies caused that epidemic. Yellow fever also became a problem for the Army during this time, felling thousands of soldiers in Cuba.
In May 1900, Major Reed returned to Cuba when he was appointed head of an investigative board charged by Army Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg to study tropical diseases, particularly yellow fever. Sternberg was an early expert in bacteriology during a time of great advances due to widespread acceptance of the germ theory of disease and new methods for studying microbial infections. During Reed's leadership of the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission in Cuba, the Board demonstrated that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes and disproved the common belief that it was transmitted by (clothing and bedding soiled by the body fluids and excrement of yellow fever victims). These points were demonstrated in a dramatic series of experiments at the US Army's Camp Lazear, named in November 1900 for Reed's assistant and friend Jesse William Lazear, who had died of yellow fever while working on the project.
This dangerous research was done using human volunteers, including some of the medical personnel, who allowed themselves to be bitten by mosquitos infected with yellow fever. The conclusions from this research were soon applied in Panama, where mosquito eradication was largely responsible for stemming the incidence of yellow fever during the construction of the Panama Canal. Epidemics of yellow fever in Panama had confounded French attempts to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama only 20 years earlier.
Although Reed received much of the credit for "beating" yellow fever, Reed himself credited Cuban medical scientist Carlos Finlay with identifying a mosquito as the vector of yellow fever and proposing how the disease might be controlled. Reed often cited Finlay in his own articles and gave him credit for the idea in his personal correspondence. The Cuban physician was a persistent advocate of the hypothesis that mosquitos were the vector of yellow fever and correctly identified the species that transmits the disease. His experiments to prove the hypothesis were discounted by many medical experts, but served as the basis for Reed's research. (1994). 9780893568603, Salem Press. ISBN 9780893568603 More recently, the politics and ethics of using medical and military personnel as research subjects have been questioned.
Reed returned from Cuba in 1901, continuing to speak and publish on the topic of yellow fever. In recognition of his research, Reed received honorary degrees from Harvard and the University of Michigan.
In November 1902, Reed suffered a ruptured appendix. He died on November 23, 1902, of the resulting peritonitis, at age 51. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Burial Detail: Reed, Walter (Section 3, Grave 1864) – ANC Explorer
This discovery helped William C. Gorgas reduce the incidence and prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases in Panama during the American campaign, from 1903 onwards, to construct the Panama Canal. Prior to this, about 10% of the workforce had died each year from malaria and yellow fever.
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. 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. 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.
In addition to that medal, course, and a stamp issued in his honor (shown), locations and institutions named after the medical pioneer include:
John Miltern portrayed Reed in the 1934 Broadway play, Yellow Jack, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Sidney Howard, in collaboration with Paul de Kruif. Harcourt Brace and Co. published the play in book form, titled Yellow Jack : A History, in 1934. 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, PBS's American Experience television series broadcast, "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.
Reed's name is featured on the frieze of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Twenty-three names of public health and tropical medicine pioneers were originally chosen to be displayed on the School building in Keppel Street when it was constructed in 1926.
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