REED, WALTER (1851-1902). An American army surgeon, sanitarian. and bacteriologist, born in Virginia. He received his medical education in the University of Virginia and in Bellevue College Hospital, New York City. lle was ap pointed assistant surgeon in the army in 1875, and in 1890 was assigned to duty in Baltimore. where he remained a year. During this period Ile made an especial study of bacteriology in the laboratory of Prof. William Welch in Johns Hop kins University. In 1893 he was appointed cura tor of the Army Medical Museum in Washington, and established a laboratory in which lie gave instruction in bacteriology to the student officers of the newly established Army Medical School. and did much original work in bacteriology and in the conduct of special sanitary inspections and investigations. In 1898 he was placed at the head of a hoard, of which Drs. Victor C. Vaughan and E. 0. Shakespeare were the other members. to investigate the epidemic occurrence of typhoid fever among the troops assembled for the Span ish-American War. It developed the surprising fact that infected water was not an important factor in camp epidemics of typhoid fever. but that the infection was distributed by the agency of flies and on the hands. feet. and clothing of the men. Their work is remarkable for the patience and skill with which a vast number of facts were brought together and collated. In 1899 Reed, with his assistant, Carroll, demonstrated the fallacy of the claim of Sanarelli that the bacillus icteroidcs was the causative agent of yellow fever. In 1900 Reed went to Havana at the bead of a commission to investigate the etiology of yellow fever, and demonstrated that yellow fever is transmitted from man to man only by the bite of mosquitoes of a certain variety (Stegomyia faseiata ), which have become infected by pre viously biting persons sick of yellow fever. The
work of this commission is remarkable for the accuracy and completeness of its experimental work, the devotion with which its (members ex posed themselves (two of them having submitted to experimental inoculations with infected mos quitoes), and the far-reaching importance of their conclusions. Practical application of this dis covery was at once made by the American mili tary authorities, with the result that yellow fever was exterminated in Cuba. At the time of his death Major Reed was first on the list of majors of the Medical Department of the United States Army, to which rank he had been promoted in 1893, and the Secretary of War had recom mended to Congress his promotion by a special act to the rank of colonel for this work, saying: "The brilliant character of this scientific achieve ment, its inestimable value to mankind, the saving of thousands of lives, and the deliverance of the Atlantic seacoast from constant apprehen sion, demand special recognition from the United States." Congress granted to his widow a pen sion of $125 a month. See INSECTS, PROPAGATION OF DISEASE BY. Consult Kean, Senate Document No. 118, "The Scientific Work and Discoveries of the Late Major Walter Reed. Surgeon. U. S. A."