William C. Gorgas

William Crawford Gorgas
William Crawford Gorgas
Born	(1854-10-03)October 3, 1854 Toulminville, Alabama, USA
Died	July 3, 1920(1920-07-03) (aged 65) London, England
Place of burial	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1880–1918
Rank	Major General
Commands held	Surgeon General of the US Army
Awards	Distinguished Service Medal Public Welfare Medal (1914)
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 Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914–1918). He is best known for his work in Florida, Havana and at the Panama Canal 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. He was a Georgist and argued that adopting Henry George's popular 'Single Tax' would be a way to bring about sanitary living conditions, especially for the poor.^[1]

Biography

Born in Toulminville, Alabama, Gorgas was the first of six children of Josiah Gorgas and Amelia Gayle Gorgas. After studying at The University of the South and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, Dr. Gorgas was appointed to the US Army Medical Corps in June 1880. He 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.^[2] In 1898, after the end of the Spanish–American War, he was appointed Chief Sanitary Officer in Havana, working to eradicate yellow fever and malaria.^[3] Gorgas capitalized on the momentous work of another Army doctor, Major Walter Reed, who had himself built much of his work on insights of a Cuban doctor, Carlos Finlay, to prove the mosquito transmission of yellow fever. He won international fame battling the illness—then the scourge of tropical and sub-tropical climates—first in Florida, later in Havana, Cuba and finally, in 1904, 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.^[4]

Gorgas served as president of the American Medical Association in 1909–10. He was made Surgeon General of the Army in 1914. That same year, Gorgas and George Washington Goethals were awarded the inaugural Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.

He retired from the Army in 1918, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 64.^[5] He 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.^[6] He was given a special funeral in St. Paul's Cathedral.^[7]

Awards

Military Awards

• Distinguished Service Medal (U.S. Army)
• Spanish Campaign Medal
• Army of Cuban Occupation Medal
• Victory Medal

Other honors

• Public Welfare Medal – National Academy of Sciences
• Honorary Knight Commander of Michael and George (KCMG) (United Kingdom)

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, previously known as Ancon Hospital and named for Dr. Gorgas in 1928. Now in Panamanian hands, it is home to the Instituto Oncologico Nacional, Panama's Ministry of Health and its Supreme Court.
• In 1947 the Gorgas Science Foundation was founded at Texas Southmost College (on the site of the former Fort Brown). The foundation supports conservation and ecological science research projects worldwide.
• Gorgas Medal awarded by the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS)
• In 1953 William C. Gorgas was inducted in the Alabama Hall of Fame.
• Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library and Gorgas' parents' final home, the Gorgas House, located on the campus of The University of Alabama, are named in honor of the Gorgas family.^[8]
• Texas Southmost College also has a Gorgas Hall in his honor. The college'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, although it was named after his father and 2nd Vice Chancellor of The University of the South, Josiah Gorgas. It was originally a student residence hall at the Sewanee Military Academy.
• The German commercial passenger ship-cargo ship SS Prinz Sigismund, after being seized by the United States when it 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 U.S. Navy troop transport USS General W. C. Gorgas in 1919, and as the U.S. Army Transport USAT General W. C. Gorgas from 1941 to 1945.
• Gorgas's Rice Rat (Oryzomys gorgasi) is a South American rodent named after Gorgas in 1971.
• The Latin University of Panama (Universidad Latina de Panama) named their health sciences faculty in Gorgas's honor.(Facultad de ciencias de la salud Dr. William. C. Gorgas).
• There is a Gorgas Street in the Presidio in San Francisco, California.
• 1984: Dedication of the "Major General William C. Gorgas Clinic" of the Mobile County Health Department, located at 251 North Bayou Street, Mobile, AL http://www.mobilecountyhealth.org/
• His papers are held at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. ^[9]

See also

• Health measures during the construction of the Panama Canal
• Sanitation
• Vector control
• Tropical disease
• Miasma theory of disease

References

• From the brochure "150 Year Celebration of the U.S. Marine Hospital/Mobile County Health Department" – December 15, 1993 – Bernard H. Eichold, II M.D., Dr. P.H., Health Officer

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to William C. Gorgas.

• 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
• Mobile County Health Department – Maj. Gen. William C. Gorgas Clinic
• William Crawford Gorgas papers, W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, The University of Alabama