William C. Gorgas

William Crawford Gorgas
Gorgas during World War I
Born	(1854-10-03)October 3, 1854 Toulminville,Alabama, US
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	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 GorgasKCMG(October 3, 1854 – July 3, 1920) was aUnited States Army physicianand 22ndSurgeon Generalof theU.S. Army(1914–1918). He is best known for his work in Florida,Havanaand at thePanama Canalin abating the transmission ofyellow feverandmalariaby controlling themosquitoesthat carry these diseases, for which he used the discoveries made by the Cuban doctorCarlos J. Finlay.At first, Finlay's strategy was greeted with considerable skepticism and opposition to such hygiene measures. However, the measures Gorgas put into practice as the head of the Panama Canal Zone Sanitation Commission saved thousands of lives and contributed to the success of the canal's construction.

He was aGeorgistand argued that adoptingHenry George's popular'Single Tax'would be a way to bring about sanitary living conditions, especially for the poor.

Early life and education

Born inToulminville,Alabama, Gorgas was the first of six children ofJosiah GorgasandAmelia Gayle Gorgas.His maternal grandparents wereGovernorJohn GayleandSarah Ann Haynsworth Gayle,the diarist.

After studying atThe University of the SouthandBellevue Hospital Medical College,Dr. Gorgas was appointed to the US ArmyMedical Corpsin June 1880.

Military career

c. 1920

He was assigned to three posts—Fort Clark,Fort Duncan,andFort Brown—in Texas. While at Fort Brown (1882–84), Gorgas survived an episode ofyellow fever.He met Marie Cook Doughty who also contracted the disease at the same place and time. They recovered together, forming a bond and soon married.

In 1898, after the end of theSpanish–American War,Gorgas was appointed Chief Sanitary Officer inHavana,where he andRobert Ernest Nobleworked to eradicate yellow fever and malaria.Gorgas capitalized on the momentous work of another Army doctor, MajorWalter Reed,who had built much of his work on the insights of Cuban doctor,Carlos Finlay,to prove the mosquito transmission ofyellow fever.Through his efforts draining both the Aedes mosquito vector breeding ponds and quarantining of yellow fever patients in screened service rooms, cases in Havana plunged from 784 to zero with a year.He won international fame battling the illness, which was then the scourge of tropical and sub-tropical climates. He worked in Florida, later inHavana, Cuba,and finally, in 1904, at the site of the construction of thePanama Canal.

As chief sanitary officer on the canal project, Gorgas implemented far-reaching sanitary programs, including the draining of ponds and swamps, fumigation, use ofmosquito netting,and construction of public water systems. These measures were instrumental in permitting the construction of thePanama 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.

Gorgas served as president of theAmerican Medical Associationin 1909–10. He was appointed asSurgeon General of the Armyin 1914. That same year, Gorgas andGeorge Washington Goethalswere awarded the inauguralPublic Welfare Medalfrom theNational Academy of Sciences.

Gorgas retired from the Army in 1918, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 64.

Personal life

He was married to Marie Cook Doughty (1862–1929) of Cincinnati.He is buried with her atArlington National Cemetery,inArlington, Virginia.

Death and legacy

• He received anhonorary knighthood(KCMG) fromKing George Vat theQueen Alexandra Military Hospitalin the United Kingdom shortly before his death there on July 3, 1920.He was given a special funeral inSt. Paul's Cathedral.

William C. Gorgas' name as it is featured on theLSHTMFrieze

• Gorgas' name features on the Frieze of theLondon School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.Twenty-three names of public health and tropical medicine pioneers were chosen to feature on the School building in Keppel Street when it was constructed in 1926.
• Gorgas, Alabamawas named after him.

Awards and Honors

Military Awards

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

Other honors

• Elected member of theAmerican Philosophical Society
• Public Welfare Medal–National Academy of Sciences
• Elected member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences
• HonoraryKnight Commander of Michael and George(KCMG) (United Kingdom)

Legacy

Maj. Gen. William C. Gorgas, honored onCanal Zone Postage

• TheGorgas 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 theUniversity of Alabamain 1992 and carries on the tradition of research, service and training intropical medicine.The Gorgas Course in Clinical Tropical Medicineis sponsored by theUniversity of Alabama School of Medicinein conjunction withUniversidad Peruana Cayetano Herediain Lima, Peru.
• Gorgas Hospitalwas a U.S. Army hospital in Panama, previously known as Ancon Hospital and named for Dr. Gorgas in 1928. Now held and operated by Panama, it is home to theInstituto Oncologico Nacional,Panama's Ministry of Health and its Supreme Court.
• In 1947 theGorgas Science Foundationwas founded atTexas Southmost College(on the site of the former Fort Brown). The foundation supports conservation and ecological science research projects worldwide.
• TheGorgas Medalis awarded by theAssociation of Military Surgeons of the United States(AMSUS)
• In 1953 William C. Gorgas was inducted into theAlabama Hall of Fame.
• Amelia Gayle GorgasLibrary and Gorgas' parents' final home, theGorgas House,located on the campus of TheUniversity of Alabama,are named in honor of the Gorgas family.
• Texas Southmost Collegehas a Gorgas Hall named in his honor. The college's campus is located on the grounds of the formerFort Brown.
• TheAlabama Power Companyrenamed its Warrior Reserve Steam Plant on theBlack Warrior RivernearParrishin honor of Gorgas in the 1920s. Gorgas had testified on behalf of the utility during the previous decade in lawsuits over mosquito-borne illnesses in the vicinity of itsLay Damhydroelectric reservoir.The coal-fired steam plant was closed in April 2019.
• The German commercialpassenger ship-cargo shipSSPrinz Sigismund,after being seized by the United States after it enteredWorld War Ion the side of theAllies,had a long American career under the nameGeneral W. C. Gorgas(named for Dr. Gorgas). It was owned by thePanama Railroad Companyand used for commercial service as SSGeneral W. C. Gorgasfrom 1917 to 1919 and from 1919 to 1941, it was used as theU.S. Navytroop transportUSSGeneral W. C. Gorgasin 1919 after World War I, and as theU.S. Army TransportUSATGeneral W. C. Gorgasfrom 1941 to 1945 during World War II.
• 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 aGorgas Avenuein the Presidio in San Francisco, California.
• Gorgas Hall at Sewanee - The University of the South is named in his honor and was ranked the worst dorm at Sewanee in 2022 by College Jaguar[2]
• In 1984 the "Major General William C. Gorgas Clinic" was dedicated as part of the Mobile County Health Department, located at 251 North Bayou Street, Mobile, AL[3]
• Gorgas's papers are held at theNational Library of MedicineinBethesda, Maryland.
• There is a Gorgas Road onFort Myer, Virginia

See also

• Health measures during the construction of the Panama Canal
• Postage stamps and postal history of the Canal Zone
• 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

Photograph of Gorgas published in the 1920 Scientific Monthly obituary

• 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., Mellander, Nelly, Charles Edward Magoon: The Panama Years. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Plaza Mayor. ISBN 1-56328-155-4. OCLC 42970390. (1999)
• Mellander, Gustavo A., The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years. "Danville, Ill.: Interstate Publishers. OCLC 138568. (1971)
• 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.RetrievedJuly 10,2009.
• 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:

• "William Crawford Gorgas".The Scientific Monthly.11(2): 187–190. 1920.Bibcode:1920SciMo..11..187.
• Ireland, M.W. (1920)."General William C. Gorgas".Science.52(1333): 54.Bibcode:1920Sci....52...53I.doi:10.1126/science.52.1333.53.PMID17736545.
• Martin, Franklin H. (1923)."William Crawford Gorgas".Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics.October: 546–558.
• Noble, R.E. (1921)."William Crawford Gorgas".Am J Public Health.11(3): 250–256.doi:10.2105/ajph.11.3.250.PMC1353777.PMID18010462.
• Siler, J.F. (1922)."Major-General William Crawford Gorgas".The American Journal of Tropical Medicine.1(2): 161–171.doi:10.4269/ajtmh.1922.s1-2.161.

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 FameBio
• The Gorgas TB Initiative
• 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
• "William Crawford Gorgas".at ArlingtonCemetery.net. January 22, 2023. (Unofficial website).