William C. Gorgas

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Born in Alabama, the son of a West Pointer who had been the Confederacy's chief ordnance officer, Gorgas received a medical degree from New York's Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1876 and joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1880. When army surgeon Walter Reed proved mosquitoes were the transmitters of the yellow fever virus, Gorgas, as the army's chief health officer in Havana, Cuba, during the U. S. occupation (1889–1902), initiated sanitation countermeasures that eradicated the disease in Cuba by eliminating the mosquito‐breeding areas and segregating stricken patients. During 1904–13, he served in Panama, duplicating his successes and greatly contributing to the completion of the canal by reducing malaria outbreaks among laborers. He later applied his sanitary measures in other parts of the world, including Ecuador and South Africa. In 1914, he was promoted to major general and appointed surgeon general of the U. S. Army. Gorgas served from 1914 to 1919, skillfully administering the Medical Corps during World War I. He died in London of a stroke. After a military funeral, his body was returned for burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Bibliography

• Marie D. Gorgas and Burton J. Hendrick, William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work, 1924.
• Edward F. Dolan, Jr. and H.T. Silver, William Crawford Gorgas: Warrior In White, 1968

Gorgas, William Crawford (1854-1920) army surgeon and sanitarian, born near Mobile, Alabama. Gorgas is credited with eliminating mosquito breeding places in Havana, Cuba, thereby effecting a dramatic decline in the incidence of yellow fever and malaria. He subsequently carried out similar disease control policies that made possible the construction of the Panama Canal. In 1914 he was appointed surgeon general of the U.S. Army.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

William Crawford Gorgas (1854-1920), surgeon general of the U.S. Army, conquered yellow fever in the Panama Canal Zone, thus making the building of the canal possible.

William C. Gorgas was born Oct. 3, 1854, near Mobile, Ala., the son of Josiah Gorgas, later a Confederate general and vice-chancellor of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tenn. Young Gorgas's early education was irregular because of the Civil War, but in 1875 he took a bachelor of arts degree from the University of the South.

Desiring a military career, Gorgas exhausted every possible means of getting an appointment to West Point, then decided to enter the Army by way of a medical degree. After graduating from the Bellevue Medical College in New York City and serving an internship at the Bellevue Hospital, he was appointed to the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army in June 1880. Then followed tours of duty at various Texas posts, in North Dakota, and nearly 10 years at Ft. Barrancas, Fla., a notorious yellow fever area to which Gorgas was assigned because he had previously had the disease and was therefore immune. In 1883 he married Marie Cook Doughty.

After the occupation of Havana, Cuba, by American troops in 1898, Gorgas took charge of a yellow fever camp at Siboney. Later that year he became chief sanitary officer of Havana. Acting on information furnished by the Yellow Fever Commission of U.S. Army physician Walter Reed that a particular strain of mosquito was the carrier of yellow fever, Gorgas deprived the mosquito of breeding places, quickly destroying the carrier and ridding the city of yellow fever. This work brought him an international reputation.

In 1904, when work commenced on the Panama Canal, Gorgas went to the Canal Zone to take charge of sanitation. Although it was known that yellow fever had been largely responsible for the French failure to build the canal, Gorgas encountered continuing opposition to his antimosquito measures from an economy-minded administration. He persevered, however, and, with the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, finally succeeded in making the cities of Panama and Colón models of sanitation.

As a result of his work in the Canal Zone, Gorgas came to be generally regarded as the world's foremost sanitary expert. A number of foreign governments and international commissions sought his aid, and his book Sanitation in Panama (1915) quickly became a classic in the public health field. In 1914 he was appointed surgeon general of the Army, and he served in that capacity until his retirement 4 years later. He died in London on July 3, 1920, and is buried in the Arlington National Cemetery.

Further Reading

Marie D. Gorgas and Burton J. Hendrick, William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work (1924), is an intimate biography from material furnished by Gorgas's wife. See also John M. Gibson, Physician to the World: The Life of General William C. Gorgas (1950).

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (November 2009)

William Crawford Gorgas
October 3, 1854(1854-10-03) – July 3, 1920 (aged 65)
William Crawford Gorgas
Place of birth	Toulminville, Alabama
Place of death	London
Place of burial	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1882-1922
Rank	Major General
Commands held	Surgeon General of the United States Army
Relations	Josiah Gorgas (father) Amelia Gayle Gorgas (mother) John Gayle (grandfather)

William Crawford Gorgas KCMG (October 3, 1854 – July 3, 1920) was a United States physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914-18). He is best known for his work in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria by controlling the mosquitoes that carry them at a time when there was considerable skepticism and opposition to such measures. Born at Toulminville, Alabama, Gorgas was the first of six children of Josiah Gorgas and Amelia Gayle Gorgas.

Contents 1 Career 2 Legacy 3 See also 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

Career

After studying at The University of the South and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, Doctor Gorgas was appointed to the US Army Medical Corps in June 1880. Gorgas was assigned to three posts -- Fort Clark, Fort Duncan, and Fort Brown -- in Texas. While at Fort Brown (1882-84), he survived yellow fever and met Marie Cook Doughty, whom he married in 1885. In 1898 after the end of the Spanish-American War Gorgas was appointed Chief Sanitary Officer in Havana, working to eradicate yellow fever and malaria.^[1]

Gorgas was made Surgeon General of the Army in 1914, in which position he was able to capitalize on the momentous work of another Army doctor, Major Walter Reed, who had himself capitalized on insights of a Cuban doctor, Carlos Finlay, to prove the mosquito transmission of yellow fever. As such, Gorgas won international fame battling the illness—then the scourge of tropical and sub-tropical climates—first in Florida, later in Havana, Cuba and finally at the Panama Canal.

As chief sanitary officer on the canal project, Gorgas implemented far-reaching sanitary programs including the draining of ponds and swamps, fumigation, mosquito netting, and public water systems. These measures were instrumental in permitting the construction of the Panama Canal, as they significantly prevented illness due to yellow fever and malaria (which had also been shown to be transmitted by mosquitoes in 1898) among the thousands of workers involved in the building project.^[2]

Main article: Health measures during the construction of the Panama Canal

Gorgas received an honorary knighthood (KCMG) from King George V at the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital in the United Kingdom shortly before his death there on July 3, 1920. He was given a special funeral in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Legacy

• The Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventive Medicine, Incorporated (GMITP), which operated the Gorgas Laboratories in Panama, was founded in 1921 and was named after Dr. Gorgas. With the loss of congressional funding in 1990, the GMITP was closed. The Institute was moved to the University of Alabama in 1992 and carries on the tradition of research, service and training in tropical medicine. The Gorgas Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine is sponsored by the University of Alabama School of Medicine in conjunction with Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru.

• Gorgas Hospital was a U.S. Army hospital in Panama named for Dr. Gorgas from 1928. Now in Panamanian hands, it is home to the Instituto Oncologico Nacional, Panama's Ministry of Health and its Supreme Court.

• In 1953 William C. Gorgas was inducted in the Alabama Hall of Fame.

• Gorgas Hall, located on the campus of The University of Alabama, is named in honor of his mother, Amelia Gayle Gorgas. The University of Texas Brownsville also has a Gorgas Hall in his honor. The university's campus is located on the grounds of the former Fort Brown.

• William Crawford Gorgas Electric Generating Plant, Located along the Black Warrior River near Parrish. Total nameplate generating capacity - 1,221,250 kW: Generating units - 5

• There is a Gorgas Hall at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. It was originally a student residence hall at Sewanee Military Academy.

• The German commercial passenger ship-cargo ship SS Prinz Sigismund, after being seized by the United States when the United States entered World War I on the side of the Allies, had a long American career under the name General W. C. Gorgas (named for Dr. Gorgas), including commercial service as SS General W. C. Gorgas from 1917 to 1919 and from 1919 to 1941, as the United States Navy troop transport USS General W. C. Gorgas in 1919, and as the United States Army Transport USAT General W. C. Gorgas from 1941 to 1945.

See also

• Sanitation
• Vector control
• Tropical disease
• Miasma theory of disease
• Gorgas's Rice Rat, a South American rodent named after Gorgas

Notes

1. ^ "Open Collections Program: Contagion, William Gorgas, 1854-1920". http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/gorgas.html. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 
2. ^ "Open Collections Program: Contagion, Tropical Diseases and the Construction of the Panama Canal, 1904-1914". http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/panamacanal.html. Retrieved 2008-09-06. 

References

• Ashburn, P.M., History of the Medical Department of the U.S. Army, 1929.
• Gibson, John M., Physician to the World: The Life of General William C. Gorgas, Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1950.
• Gorgas, Marie and Burton J. Hendrick, William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work, New York: Doubleday, 1924.
• Mellander, Gustavo A. (1971) The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years. Danville, Ill.: Interstate Publishers. OCLC 138568.
• Mellander, Gustavo A.; Nelly Maldonado Mellander (1999). Charles Edward Magoon: The Panama Years. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Plaza Mayor. ISBN 1563281554. OCLC 42970390.
• Phalen, James M., "Chiefs of the Medical Department, U.S. Army 1775-1940, Biographical Sketches," Army Medical Bulletin, No. 52, April 1940, pp. 88–93.
• Wilson, Owen (July 1908). "The Conquest Of The Tropics: How Col. Gorgas's Sanitary Work At Panam Has Proved The Possibility of Beautiful Tropical Residence". The World's Work: A History of Our Time XVI: 10432-10445. 
• Endorsements, Resolutions and other Data in Behalf of the Nomination of Dr. William Crawford Gorgas for Election to the New York Hall of Fame for Great Americans, 2 vols., Birmingham: Gorgas Hall of Fame Committee, 1950.

Obituaries:

• Ireland, M. W., Science, July 16, 1920
• Martin, F.H., Surg. Gyn. Obst., October 1923
• Noble, R.E. Am. J. Pub. Health, March 1921
• Siler, J.F., Am. J. Trop. M., March 1922

External links

• Video: William Gorgas Biography on Health.mil – The Military Health System provides a look at the life and work of William Gorgas.
• The Gorgas Memorial Institute, University of Alabama
  • The Gorgas Courses in Clinical Tropical Medicine
  • Gorgas Memorial Institute Research Award (ASTMH Website)
• Gorgas Memorial Library, at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
• Alabama Hall of Fame Bio
• The Gorgas TB Initiative
• Arlington National Cemetery Website Page on Gorgas
• Gorgas Science Foundation Website

Persondata
NAME	Gorgas, William Crawford
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	22nd Surgeon General of the United States Army
DATE OF BIRTH	October 3, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH	Toulminville, Alabama
DATE OF DEATH	July 3, 1920
PLACE OF DEATH	London

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