Reed, Walter, 1851–1902, American army surgeon, b. Gloucester co., Va. In 1900 he was sent to Havana as head of an army commission to investigate an outbreak of yellow fever among American soldiers. Following the earlier suggestion by C. J. Finlay that the disease was transmitted by a mosquito vector rather than by direct contact, Reed and his companions used human volunteers under controlled experimental conditions to prove this conclusively. In 1901 they published their findings that yellow fever was caused by a virus borne by the Stegomyia fasciata mosquito (later designated as Aëdes aegypti).
(born Sept. 13, 1851, Belroi, Va., U.S.—died Nov. 22, 1902, Washington, D.C.) U.S. pathologist and bacteriologist. He received a medical degree at age 18 from the University of Virginia and entered the Army Medical Corps in 1875. He investigated the spread of typhoid fever in military camps during the Spanish-American War and was later curator of the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C. Yellow fever was believed to be spread by bedding and other articles, but Carlos Finlay had theorized in 1886 that it was carried by insects, and Reed's team ruled out a bacterium suspected as the cause and found patterns of spread that supported the insect theory. Controlled experiments proved transmission by mosquito bite, and in 1901 efforts to combat an outbreak in Havana succeeded within 90 days.
Reed, Walter (1851–1902) physician, soldier; born in Belroi, Va. He received a medical degree from the University of Virginia in 1869 and served an internship in Brooklyn; commissioned assistant surgeon in 1875, he spent 11 years in frontier garrison posts. A transfer in 1890 gave Reed the opportunity to pursue bacteriological research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and in 1893 he became professor of bacteriology at the newly established Army Medical School. In 1897 he began the study of the transmission of yellow fever, the work for which he is remembered, and headed the army's Yellow Fever Commission, which investigated outbreaks of the disease in army camps in Cuba. Experimenting on volunteers, Reed and his colleagues (including Jesse Lazear and James Carroll) proved conclusively that the Aedes aegypti mosquito spread yellow fever. Attacks on mosquito breeding places cut the number of cases from 1,400 in Havana in 1900 to 37 in all of Cuba the following year. Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., is named in his honor.
Bibliography
See studies by H. A. Kelly (3d ed. 1923), A. E. Truby (1943), and L. N. Wood (1943).
Reed, Walter
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Walter Reed
(credit: Bettmann Archive)
Reed, Walter (1851–1902) physician, soldier; born in Belroi, Va. He received a medical degree from the University of Virginia in 1869 and served an internship in Brooklyn; commissioned assistant surgeon in 1875, he spent 11 years in frontier garrison posts. A transfer in 1890 gave Reed the opportunity to pursue bacteriological research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and in 1893 he became professor of bacteriology at the newly established Army Medical School. In 1897 he began the study of the transmission of yellow fever, the work for which he is remembered, and headed the army's Yellow Fever Commission, which investigated outbreaks of the disease in army camps in Cuba. Experimenting on volunteers, Reed and his colleagues (including Jesse Lazear and James Carroll) proved conclusively that the Aedes aegypti mosquito spread yellow fever. Attacks on mosquito breeding places cut the number of cases from 1,400 in Havana in 1900 to 37 in all of Cuba the following year. Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., is named in his honor.
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