Sternberg, George Miller

Sternberg, George Miller (1838–1915) bacteriologist, epidemiologist; born in Otsego County, N.Y. As a surgeon in the Union army during the Civil War, he was present at several battles, but spent the final months on hospital duty after he contracted typhoid fever. He remained in the army, and during the 1870s he became an authority on yellow fever. Assigned to the Havana Yellow Fever Commission (1879–80), he was one of the first to use photomicrography in the course of his investigations. He would go on to be the codiscoverer (with Louis Pasteur) of the pneumococcus, the plasmodium of malaria, and the bacilli of tuberculosis and typhoid fever. His research on microorganisms reinforced his interest in disinfection, resulting in his essay Disinfection and Individual Prophylaxis against Infectious Diseases (1886). As the pioneer American bacteriologist, he laid down the basics of the science, summed up in his major text, A Manual of Bacteriology (1892). Promoted to surgeon general of the U.S. Army (1893–1902), he oversaw the establishment of the Army Medical School, the Army Nurse Corps, the Army Dental Corps, the Typhoid Fever Board (1898), and the Yellow Fever Commission, headed by Walter Reed (1900).