Walter Reed

Walter Reed is a military Médecin American, born the September 13rd 1851 in Belroi and dead the November 23rd 1902 with Washington.

He is the son of Pasteur methodist, Lemuel Sutton Reed, and of Pharaba born White. After primary studies with Charlottesville, it makes its studies with the Université of Virginia and is graduate in 1869. It becomes internal with the Brooklyn City Hospital. In 1874, at the time of a voyage to return visit to his/her father, it meets his future wife, Emilie Lawrence, girl of a grower of North Carolina.

Reed then decides to enter to the army for safety that it offers to him. It becomes, after examinations, first lieutenant. Begin a garrison life then. It spends five years to Fort Lowell and Fort Apache. It is promoted captain and is transferred to Fort McHenry (with Baltimore). It then starts to study the Physiologie with the Université Johns Hopkins (1881 - 1882). Reed leaves to Fort Omaha (Nebraska) then to Mount Vermon Barracks (Alabama). In 1890, it returns to Baltimore as officer recruiter. Under the direction of William Henry Welch (1850-1934), it starts to study the Bactériologie and the Pathologie. It is one prosperous period for medicine following the discoveries of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) and Robert Koch (1843-1910). One of the principal introducers of bacteriology to the the United States of America is not other than a close relation of Reed, army medical officer him also, George Miller Sternberg (1838-1915).

To face the epidemic of Yellow fever which prevailed in the south of the country (in particular at the time of the war against the Mexico) and especially on the American troops stationed with Cuba, a group of researchers, under the direction of W.H. Welch, is organized. Reed and James Carroll (1854-1907) evaluate with three hundred and thousand cases of 1793 with 1900 and a loss of five hundred million dollars. The microbe responsible for the disease had been discovered in 1897 by Giuseppe Sanarelli (1864-1940), remained to find the vector. A scientific expedition, led by Reed, goes to Cuba: it includes/understands J. Carroll, in charge of the bacteriological aspect, Jesse William Lazear (1866-1900), in charge of the experiments on the mosquitos and Aristides Agramonte (1869-1931), in charge of pathology. The discovery, a few years earlier, of the role of a mosquito in the transmission of paludism by Sir Ronald Ross (1857-1932), clearly directs the researchers of this time.

In Cuba, the Americans meet a doctor and cuban naturalist, Carlos Finlay (1833-1915). A little later the role of the mosquito, Culex fasciatus , is shown. Carroll and Lazear unfortunately inoculated the disease because of the mosquitos; Lazear dies about it. Very quickly, the paternity of discovered vector is discussed between an American tradition praising the successes of its medicine and Reed in particular (by minimizing work of its assistants like Lazear) and a cuban tradition which defends work of Finlay. Actually, this discovery is really a collective work where each one contributes to its realization.

A great medical establishment was baptized the Walter Reed General Hospital (Washington, D.C) in his honor.

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